


Water Flows [Book 2 of Avatar: the Last Dragon]

by Dapper_Stormtrooper



Series: Avatar: the Last Dragon [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Legend of the Five Rings
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, POV Third Person Limited, Samurai, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 15:38:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14897297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dapper_Stormtrooper/pseuds/Dapper_Stormtrooper
Summary: Fire. Water. Earth. Air. Only the eldest of the shugenja of fire still speak of the old days: a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water-Tribes, Earth-Kingdom, Fire-Nation and Air-Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire-Nation attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements; only he could stand before the might of the Akodo’s Legions. But when the time came for battle, he vanished. Over one-hundred years have passed, and the Fire-Nation is nearing victory in the war. Five years ago, my father banished me from his sight for disrespect, leaving me and my honored uncle to search for a myth. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air-Nomads and that the cycle is broken, but I haven't lost hope. I still believe that, somehow, I will capture the Avatar and restore my HONOR.Join us in the telling of a tale you know and love, with a twist! Series re-write. Fusion AU! (with L5R)Sequel to “Fire Burns.” Updates Weekends.Rated M for graphic violence and language.





	1. The Boy on the Warship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The Following is a non-profit fan-based work of fiction. Full DisclaimerTM is available on the author page/series page. This is also (as should be obvious from the title) a sequel. You can probably make it through without reading previous work but… why would you want to?
> 
> Don't worry, it'll be here when you get back.
> 
> Chapter uses, where appropriate, dialog from S1E1&2 (The boy in the iceberg and the avatar returns)
> 
> Rated B, for Beginnings.
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Late Summer, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The tea was actually quite good.

 _Ash and bone,_ Zuko thought irritably,  _if I'm not careful I'll turn into my uncle_

Zuko contemplated that fact as he stood at the front of his ship as it slowly made its way further south, dodging icebergs where it had to, breaking through them where appropriate. His uncle had insisted that drinking the tea would help him learn the "heart of fire" technique, an old firebending kata for staving off the cold that Zuko was only now getting the hang of.

"Bending comes from the breath and the stomach nephew," Iroh had said pacifyingly when Zuko had failed to pick up the technique. "Warming the stomach should make it easier."

Hence the tea in Zuko's hand.

His other hand held a letter he had received in the last port he been in. He shook his head, snorting in mirth at its contents. As his banishment grew longer and longer, more and more frustrating, mirth was something that was getting harder and harder to come by.

Ty Lee's letters could always be counted on to lighten his spirits however.

"Something amusing nephew?" Iroh said, looking up, surprised, from his bowl of roast turtle-duck.

"Ty Lee has decided to join the circus," Zuko said, not turning, merely gesturing with the letter.

"The little Ikoma girl that's friends with your sister?" Iroh said, amused. "Are you sure it was her? Aren't there…"

"Seven of them, yes. All identical. And yes, I'm sure. Firstly, this letter is  _from_ her. Secondly, while no one can tell them apart by sight, she's the only one of them who would do a thing like this." He shook his head in consternation.

_Mai is going to be furious._

And  _there_  was the black mood he was more accustomed to. The relationship between his only two friends was something that he had looked forward to hearing about on a semi-regular basis, but there was no way, in the Sun's holy name, that  _Mai_  of all people would be caught dead at a circus. Never mind that her proficiency with throwing weapons was practically a show all on its own. Her fatherwould most certainly not allow it. Her  _mother_  would probably have one of her fainting spells at the mere idea.

He folded the letter and placed it inside his uniform with a sigh.

 _I must be losing my mind,_ he growled internally, mind coming back to his present surroundings. _What in Akodo's name was I thinking coming this far south?_  He glared around at the frozen seascape, icebergs everywhere.

It was a rhetorical question of course, he knew perfectly well why he'd come. He'd just needed a break.

A break from all the staring.

It hadn't been bad while he was with the army. Scars were common and were seen as badges of successful survival when they were thought of at all. Occasionally he'd startle someone if he came up to them suddenly, but, with a few notable exceptions, that was the worst of it. It was a state of affairs he'd not truly appreciated until he'd spent an extended period of time in the colonies. Many in the peasant population had neither the discipline to avoid looking horrified by his face or the intelligence to realize what he could  _do_ to them if the mood took him. They gaped at him in horror, or worse,  _pity._  As though he were some sort of  _freak_ , not a samurai due the respect he deserved.

He'd had to make a few  _examples_.

Normally he didn't care to bend at peasants, they were beneath him after all, but sometimes he grew so  _angry_. Angry at their disrespect, at their lack of self-control and at their lack of courtesy. He was always angry these days it seemed, angry at the very world he lived in. If they'd thrown themselves on their knees and begged forgiveness they'd have probably have gone unpunished.

Probably.

He'd tried not to actually hurt anyone, and he was usually able to channel his anger into something productive, like hunting bandits, or encroaching Earth-Kingdom soldiers but it was a close thing a few times.

He was supposed to protect his people, not come within a hair's breadth of immolating them.

The fury was a constant now in his life and very useful to him here at the south pole. Fury was  _warm_ , and any source of warmth was appreciated. But just a few weeks before he'd begun to dream of Matomo again, of melting stone and screaming villagers, their faces barely remembered in the haze of his uncontrollable fury. Lately, however, the faces in his dreams had grown sharp in relief. His uncle, his sister, his crew,  _Rainesu_ , all of their faces he saw as he moved through the panicked village, completely and utterly out of control.

He was beginning to have concerns about his sanity.

So, he'd gone south. He really hadn't given it much thought, he just needed some time. Time to cool off, and there was no better place for that then the bottom of the world. The course planning paperwork he had to submit to the Admiralty had a line for rationale, for the purpose of the mission. He always wrote the same thing; "hunting the Avatar."

It was all he  _could_  write.

"CONTACT! PORT SIDE!" cried a voice from the crow's-nest, startling Zuko from his brooding.

He spun left and saw a bright blue beam of light splitting the twilit sky, extending to the heavens and seemingly beyond. A jolt like electricity shot through him, his yellow eye growing wide with excitement.

 _That's it! It's HIM,_ he thought in shock. He knew it somehow, felt it in his bones. He'd never seen anything like it before, and he'd been around the world. The only  _other_ thing he'd never seen before was the Avatar.

_Finally._

"RANGE AND BEARING!" he roared, sprinting across the deck of the ship and halfway up the ladder towards the ship's bridge.

"Orders, sir?!" His executive officer had leaned out the helm's window, saving him some effort.

"Hard to PORT Mr. Dosei, best possible speed! Make ready the ice-breaker!"

Soldiers and sailors began working with frenzied activity, making the ship ready for action. Zuko stalked into his cabin and began doing his own plotting to figure out where the beam had come from. The lookout would be in soon with a bearing and range, and he wanted a head start.

"Nephew?" Iroh called, knocking on the door frame of his open door.

"Yes, Uncle?" Zuko said, not looking up.

"I must suggest caution nephew; the south pole is an odd place, it's said that the spirits used to roam wild here before the Water-Tribe came."

"Your  _point_ , Uncle?"

"If the Avatar is not here…"

"He IS here."

"But if he is not… you mustn't give up hope. You get very worked up about these things you know, and-"

"Is there a reason you're treating me like a  _child_  Uncle?" Zuko said darkly, glaring at him. He was a few months over 17 and had been an adult since his gempukku, over four years ago.

"That had not been my intent Zuko. I am simply concerned for you," Iroh said, his eyes narrowing.

The stared at each other for a moment, until they heard footsteps pounding down the hall. The lookout making best possible speed towards his captain.

"I've got bearing sir, 162 degrees South Sou'East!"

"What about…" Zuko stopped.

_Of course, he doesn't have range, that... whatever-it-was didn't have a top to it and there were probably icebergs in the way at its base._

"Acknowledged, sailor. Bearing 162, range indeterminate. Head to the bridge and tell the XO to make best possible speed around any icebergs too big for the breaker, set condition one throughout the ship," Zuko said briskly and plotted a circle on his map where the beam could have originated from.

"Aye aye Sir!" the sailor cried as he darted away, a look of relief on his face.

"I will  _try_ not to be too  _hard_  on myself should this prove to be a false trail," Zuko said sarcastically, looking back up at his Uncle. "After all, I'm  _completely unused_ to failure!" he finished with a snap.

Iroh sighed. "Yes, my prince, I apologize for my rudeness," he said, turning away.

Zuko rubbed his eye in consternation at himself.  _There is no reason to yell at him, he just cares about you,_  he thought made a mental note to apologize to him later and began reviewing his maps.

 

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Zuko sparred with Sgt Rin.

The Sgt, despite approaching middle age, was an excellent swordsman. His lanky build allowed his sword strikes to seem to whip out of nowhere and to strike with the precision and power born of long hours of practice. He was not a bender unfortunately but was still a fine warrior and accomplished duelist. Despite kenjutsu being what Zuko's sister referred to as "primitive brawling" Zuko refused to neglect his skill with the sword. So, he practiced.

When he practiced he didn't have to think about the fact that hadn't found anything, or slept, in two days.

 _It was HIM, I know it!_  He snarled internally, earning himself a snap on the elbow when he failed to block Sgt Rin's boken.  _Focus! I need to foc-_

Sgt Rin had stopped, dropping his guard position, and pointed starboard. "Flare Sir."

"Flare?" Zuko said, puzzled, as he turned around.

"CONTACT STARBOARD SIDE!" came the confirming cry from the crow's-nest.

There was indeed a flare, a Fire-Nation standard distress beacon, burning a bright red-gold arc through the air, ninety degrees from their current heading. Iroh stood from where he was contemplating his Pai Sho board, as usual, and merely looked at Zuko.

 _Damn him,_ Zuko thought,  _he assumes I will ignore it!_

One of the first rules Zuko had learned when taking command of a ship is that you never ignored a distress call, not even from an enemy. Firing a distress flare was a sign of automatic surrender, a cry for help. Though they loved the sea and hated an enemy navy, every sailor knew that the sea was a cruel mistress and would kill you more completely and for far less reason than any mortal man would.

Drowning was not a particularly honorable death.

"Damnit," Zuko said quietly, vocalizing his thoughts. "Hard to Starboard! Prepare the skiffs!" He shouted loudly.

Iroh sighed in relief.

"You thought I would ignore it?" Zuko grumbled as he stalked over to his uncle.

"I  _hoped_  you would not, but you  _do_  have the tendency to focus on your objective often to the exclusion of all else," Iroh said, smiling ruefully. "Just as your father and I did at your age."

"Noted, uncle."

"Of course," Iroh continued, "your father and I used to behave like that while pursuing  _women_ , not chasing down elderly men."

"One of these days I am going to throw you over the side and see if I can use you to catch a giant sea serpent," Zuko said in mock irritation.

"Oh," Iroh said giving a false shiver, "not here, it's far too cold. For me and for sea serpents"

 

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"Sir, you might want to see this." Lt Taro said, gesturing with a spyglass

It was a few hours later and they were on the bridge, simply waiting, scanning for any sign of the imperiled vessel. Zuko walked over to the window and took the proffered spyglass

"Yes, I've  _seen_ snow bef-," he started cutting off quickly, "are those… buildings?"

"I believe so sir. Must be a Unicorn village."

The Water-Tribe had entered the great war over three decades ago in response to repeated provocation from the Fire-Nation, joining with the Earth-Kingdom's side of the conflict. Despite being spoken of a one "tribe" of people they were divided into two groups, one at either edge of the globe. The Tribe of the Crane in the north and the Tribe of the Unicorn in the south. The Unicorn had had the better of the two navies and so Zuko's grandfather, Fire-Lord Azulon, had elected to strike there first.

It had been problematic at first, the Unicorn were a nomadic people and simply weren't around to be attacked unless they wanted to be. Azulon had had to essentially besiege the entire south pole, cutting off their access to the sea and the ice seals and rhino-whales that were their main sources of food.

Through cunning and tenacity their War-Chief, Moto Chagatai, had broken through the blockade with the bulk of their fleet and had begun to wreak havoc on the Fire-Nation's eastern islands. He laid siege and took many of them, even laying waste to the whole of the island of Jang Hui, before Fire-Lord Azulon himself entered the fray and, with the help of Zuko's uncle, brought him low and devastated their fleet of wooden ships.

So impressed was the Fire-Lord that he had offered them something unprecedented in respect for their prowess and ferocity, an armistice, an honorable ceasefire. He spent the remaining years of his life building the wonder of the world that was "the Gates of Azulon," a series of iron chain barricades that could be raised and lowered to protect the Sea of Flames, the main waterway into the capital.

Unfortunately, the armistice had only lasted until Azulon's death. Zuko remembered when he had been a boy the word coming down of how the Unicorn had begun attacking fishing vessels in the south sea as a test of the new Fire-Lord's resolve. His father's reprisals had been swift and overwhelming.

The Unicorn had practically been annihilated.

In the north, instead of mindless nonsensical aggression, the Crane had focused on fortifying their icy castles and conducting minor raids. Trying to maintain their pride, while provoking as little attention to themselves as possible. As such, they had managed to be more successful at continuing to be relevant on the global scale, if only slightly.

Both halves of the Water-Tribe built their dwellings out of ice and snow, trees not being in abundance in the frozen wastes that were their home. Hence the state of the tiny village in Zuko's view, its igloos and snow-yurts nearly invisible against the white backdrop of the terrain behind them.

"Well," Zuko said, snapping the collapsible telescope shut, his mouth in the beginnings of a sneer, "let's go pay them a visit, shall we?"

"What about the flare?" Iroh said questioningly.

"The range and bearing…" Zuko walked over to the map table and pointed, "puts the distress flare somewhere in this area," he indicated a circle a bit inland of the observed coast. "We'll have to make landfall anyway and," he grinned savagely, "we could use a guide."

_To find the flare AND the Avatar._

 

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"Let's make an impression, shall we?" Zuko roared, his infantrymen behind him waiting for landfall.

Zuko had found that showing up impressively, making it clear that he could destroy a person utterly and completely, tended to save a lot of tedious talk. When you rammed your boat through a fortification without it taking any damage, there wasn't a lot of "What is the meaning of this?" talk.

Your meaning was perfectly clear.

The ship slammed into a feeble barricade made of ice and snow, its icebreaker making short work of it and its crude watchtower. The forward ramp lowered and Zuko stalked out, his black and amber armor contrasting heavily with the whiteness of the snow, steam rising from his own elevated temperature. He advanced towards a huddled mass of water peasants, dressed in their dark blues and purples, maybe twenty or thirty in all and a lone warrior crouched in front of them, face coated in war-paint.

"Aaaaaaaah!" The warrior let out an unimpressive battle cry and charged Zuko, club held high over his head.

 _Poor stance, awful balance, no wakizashi,_  Zuko thought in a single heartbeat. _Peasant. Not a threat._

Without bending, Zuko kicked the club out the man's hand then followed it up with a roundhouse kick to the head that flung him out of the way. He barely even broke stride, and continued forward, purposely twisting his face into a savage snarling grin that made it look even more frightening.

"I require a-"

"RAAAAH!" the man had gotten back up, his war paint rubbed away in the snow, and charged him.

Zuko waved the guards down, better to cow the peasants by a solo display of arms. His katana came out and sliced the man's ( _boy's actually...)_  club in half. Showing a quickness Zuko had not expected from a peasant the (... _young man? He might even be my age...)_  dropped quickly and rolled past Zuko, drawing something from his back and throwing it as he came up on one knee. Zuko dodged and advanced calmly as the young man grabbed a spear he'd somehow concealed in the snow.

"Show no fear!" a tiny child cried out from the now huddled mass of villagers.

 _Such spirit for a defeated people,_  Zuko thought, _I think I'll let them liv-_

The object the young man had thrown had, through some quirk of its construction, returned and slammed into Zuko's helmet with a force he had not thought the small object could muster. It didn't hurt, but it unsettled Zuko's helmet. The young man smiled proudly and charged forward shouting.

_Surprisingly competent for a peasant, pity he isn't smart enough to know when he's beaten. Or to have a balanced stance. Time to END this._

Zuko sheathed his sword, and simply grabbed the Unicorn's spear out of the air as it came towards his face. He snapped it with his armored forearm, disarmed the man with a spin and then punched him square in the nose. He felt the peasant's nose break under his fist, and he followed the strike with a high spinning overhead kick, driving the peasant down to the ground. Holding the young warrior in place with his boot on his neck, he returned his attention back to the huddled masses.

"I require. A guide," he growled. He enunciated his words to ensure that they understood that  _now_ was the time for talking and not more foolish resistance. "An hour ago, a Fire-Nation distress flare was shot off from somewhere," he gestured to his right, "over there. Someone will show me the way there."

"That was me," a calm voice said from Zuko's left. He turned his head bringing the speaker out of his blind spot. A young water-tribe woman stood holding an ancient crone, staring at him.

"You set off a  _Fire-Nation_  flare?" he asked skeptically.

"It was an accident… there's an old abandoned ship," she replied tensely.

"I will need to see it," Zuko said.

"I can take you... if you promise not to hurt my brother."

The peasant under his boot made a gurgling sound.

"Your  _brother_ attacked a samurai," Zuko intoned softly, "generally when a peasant does that the punishment is  _death."_

"We're not peasants!" The girl said forcefully, a hint of anger creeping into her voice, "I'm Shinjo Katara of the Unicorn! That is my elder brother Shinjo Sokka."

"If you are samurai, where are your daisho?" Zuko mused aloud, skepticism obvious in his voice.

"I… We haven't…" she grew flustered.

 _I see,_  Zuko thought, glancing around quickly, seeing only the elderly and the very young.  _There aren't any adult samurai here. They must have left or been slain before these two could complete their gempukku. Interesting._

He looked down at the Unicorn under his boot.  _Shinjo Sokka was it?_ "I suppose it makes sense, no one in their right mind would let  _this_   _one_  have a wakizashi," he said tauntingly.

Sokka made angry bubbling noises and tried to rise, Zuko didn't allow it.

"Very well,  _Shinjo_ Katara _,"_  he said, his tone making clear that he was taking a great deal on faith. "I will need to see the ship for myself." He leaned closer trying to burrow into her blue-gray eyes with his lone yellow one. "And after I  _have_  seen it we will discuss the location of the Avatar."

Her eyes widened and suddenly darted over his right shoulder.

He began to turn to see what she was looking at and then something hit him in the side of his stomach with an inordinate amount of force, knocking his helmet completely off, bowling him end over end, half burying him in loose snow.

Enraged, he struggled to his feet and saw the perpetrator, a penguin, waddling away while a new person, a short bald man in orange and yellow helped the bleeding Shinjo boy to his feet. He held a staff in his other hand and had a wakizashi made of wood stuffed through the back of his belt.

 _A wooden wakizashi? Where have I seen…_ his eye grew wide in shock.  _An AIRbender!_

The man turned around, revealing that he was just a boy. A boy with an arrow tattooed on his head.

Zuko's soldiers moved to encircle the newcomer, but with a wave of the airbender's staff the wind picked up suddenly, knocking them back and covering them with snow.

"You. You're the  _Avatar?_ " Zuko said, stunned. "You're just a boy."

"So?  _You're_  just a teenager," the boy chirped in amusement.

With a gesture Zuko bent fire into his hand, creating a crimson blade that hummed and pulsed angrily. Everyone but the Avatar took a step back in surprise. Zuko's eye grew wide in a combination of shock and bloodlust.

"I, Akodo Zuko, challenge you here and now to honorable combat!" Zuko said grinning triumphantly. "I have you now!"

"No thank you," the boy said smilingly.

"Very well, we sh- wait, what?" Zuko blinked stupidly.

"I said 'no thank you.' 'Thank you' is what you say to be polite," the tattooed boy said still smiling.

"You can't… You can't just refuse a challenge!" Zuko thundered.

"Sure I can, I just did!"

"But… Have you no honor?!"

"Well sure! I just don't particularly want to fight you."

Zuko was flabbergasted.

"I mean if we fight here in the middle of the village somebody could really get hurt," the boy said, scratching his head sheepishly.

"A fight is going to happen whether you duel me or not!" Zuko growled advancing on him.

"What if I just surrender? Will you promise to leave? And not hurt any more of these people"

Zuko blinked.  _It… it can't be this simple, can it?_

"Surrender to me and, on my honor, you and I will leave immediately. This village will be unharmed, so I swear."

The boy shrugged. "All right then."

"Aang no, don't do this!" Katara shouted as Zuko's men grabbed Aang's arms and led him up the ship's ramp.

"Don't worry Katara, everything will be fine," he called over his shoulder.

 

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"What was all the commotion about?" Iroh said, popping his head into Zuko's cabin.

"I… I've got him," Zuko said quietly staring at the wall, a look of complete bewilderment on his face.

"Got who?"

"The Avatar... the AVATAR uncle!" Zuko cried, suddenly looking half his age as he leapt up and grinned wildly at his uncle "Ash and bone, I'VE CAPTURED THE AVATAR!" he began to laugh maniacally.

"That little boy? The Avatar would be an old man"

"Don't you see?" cried Zuko, still laughing madly as he rifled through the papers at his desk, the files he had on the Avatar. "Avatar Roku died one hundred fourteen years ago years ago! Sozen's comet was one hundred and  _one_  years ago! The Avatar didn't just go into hiding, he went to sleep! For over a hundred years!" His laughing intensified as tears began to stream from his right eye. "He's a thirteen-year-old boy! I've been hunting a sleeping child for almost half a decade!" he wheezed as he sat down and fought to catch his breath. "I… I can go  _home_ ," he whispered softly, almost disbelievingly.

"You can go home," Iroh said and bowed proudly. "Well done Prince Zuko, well done."

 

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Zuko hadn't been able to sleep, he knew it would be several weeks before his ship made it to Fire-Nation waters, but his mind was a whirl. He paced back and forth, muttering to himself, thinking about what he'd say to his father, what his father would say back, how proud everyone would be. He kept glancing at the staff he'd confiscated from the Avatar, just to make sure it was real.

Suddenly his ears caught the sound of slamming doors and rapid footfalls booming their way down the hall outside his room. Very  _light_  footfalls.  _Not_ one of his crew.

 _He's escaped?! Damnit!_  He thought furiously as he looked around.  _He's come for his staff._

Zuko stood behind the door to his cabin and waited.

"My staff!" the Avatar exclaimed happily as he stepped into the room.

Zuko slammed the door behind him.

"Generally, when a person surrenders they stay put in their cell," Zuko hissed. "Apparently, the  _Avatar_  need not concern himself with honor!" Then he charged and the duel began.

The boy was  _fast._  Faster than anything Zuko had ever seen. Faster than  _Azula_  even, and she was like lightning. He'd thought water style was a difficult opponent? This wasn't like fighting against yourself, this was like fighting nothing, like trying to wrestle with a summer breeze.

 _But still doable,_  he thought to himself, _just keep him in here, let him tire out. Keep him in the middle distance._

The Avatar flipped and twirled and dodged, winding in long circles around Zuko. At one point he summoned a ball of wind and rode it around on the ceiling, even faster than before. He grabbed one of Zuko's wall hangings and tied it around him moving so fast Zuko could barely see him. Zuko exploded out of the hanging, bathing the entire room in crimson fire. Aang grabbed his staff and blew himself a clear patch. Zuko summoned his sword of fire. They squared off again, the battle that had been raging the moment before gone, now locked into a battle of anticipation and wits.

A battle the Avatar won.

The boy slammed Zuko into the wall by bending a gust of wind under his futon and slamming it into him. Then as Zuko began to fall to the ground he did it again, slamming him into the ceiling.

Zuko shook his head, clearing it to see the Avatar rapidly exiting his cabin heading for the outside.

"NO," he growled madly leaping to his feet to pursue.

He chased the boy down the hall and onto the bridge where the Avatar had leaped out the fore window, his staff unfolding to reveal wings. Zuko, with no consideration for his own safety, flung himself after and managed to grasp the Avatar's foot.

They were too heavy to maintain altitude, and they both hit the deck with a thud. Zuko rose immediately and kicked the glider away, then tried to seize the boy by the neck. The Avatar spun away rapidly, putting distance between himself and Zuko, landing on the edge of the ship.

"Can't you just let me go?" Aang asked desperately.

"No," Zuko said flatly, and pummeled him with fire.

Zuko locked the boy in place with a torrent of fire, an overwhelming red flood of flame. The boy blocked as best he could but he quickly seemed to grow weaker, exhausted. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out, falling over the edge of the ship.

"DAMNIT!" Zuko roared, "MAN OVERBOARD!"

As sailors piled onto the deck a strange basso roar sounded to Zuko's left, something was coming towards his ship. Something  _flying_.

"What the…?" Zuko began, but stopped, cut off by a new noise. It was another rumble, much deeper and more dangerous, coming from below his ship.

The Avatar.

The boy, his eyes and his tattoos aflame with shining blue light rose from the waves like one of the dreaded sea serpents of old, riding on a massive column of water. He landed on the boat surrounded by a spinning wheel of hundreds of gallons of water, which he flung outward knocking back the soldiers who had come at Zuko's call and sending Zuko himself flying over the edge.

Zuko managed to just barely catch the anchor and once he had secured his grip he quickly began to climb his way back up. He could see the Avatar's staff right above him and he reached to grab it only to find the other end being held by Shinjo Sokka. The Unicorn looked at him, grinning, his nose swollen from where Zuko had broken it and he slammed the staff into Zuko's nose roughly, breaking it as well, and knocking him back down.

"That's from the Unicorn!" Sokka shouted, giving a little hop of emphasis. "You icehole!"

Growling, Zuko began to climb the anchor chain again, his nose streaming blood. When he reached the top of the chain again he grabbed a proffered hand that was thrust out over the edge.

"Are you alright nephew?" Iroh asked worriedly.

"Never mind me," he snarled thickly, "OPEN FIRE!"

The ship began to throw everything it had at the retreating creature, blasts of fire, leafhead arrows and the large bolt from the ship's main ballista.

"Great comet?" Iroh asked.

"Great comet," Zuko snarled.

Working together the two Akodos bent an enormous amount of fire and hurled it towards the Avatar. It was on course for a solid hit when it took an impossible 90-degree turn and hit a giant iceberg on the starboard side of the ship. The icy wall collapsed, half burying the ship and blocking their path.

"RRGGGG!" Zuko raged wordlessly. "RANGE AND BEARING! Get the ice breaking gear! Clear this away!" he ordered after coming to himself.

"Ah, sir?" Sgt Rin said quietly.

"WHAT… happened to them?" Zuko's voice went from rage to confusion instantly.

Behind him, on the aft of the ship, it looked like half a platoon had been turned into ice statues, the rest of the men had begun trying to thaw them out.

_The Avatar._

"Damn him," he snarled.

"It was the girl, sir," said Sgt Rin quietly.

"Girl? What girl?"

"The Shinjo girl sir."

"She's a waterbender?!" Zuko said eye widening.

"Yes, sir."

 _Well at least she didn't lie to me about being a peasant,_  he thought, mind spinning furiously. A bender was a samurai regardless of anything else.

He stalked over to the ice sculptures that were his men, "I'll deal with them, the rest of you get to work and clear us a path!"

"Yes, Sir!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hello! And welcome to the Author notes! If you are one of my (hopefully extant) new readers THIS is the place where I put my musings about the chapter and some clarifications for those not familiar with the smaller fandom (L5R). For those dozen or so old hands, you will also find a new section entitled "Deviations from Standard," wherein I discuss the places (both obvious and non-obvious) where I depart from canon. Other than the whole fusion-AU thing.
> 
> And now on with the rambles!
> 
> Who are the Unicorn?: The Unicorn Clan of L5R are Mongols. Plain and simple. They left the empire in its early days and roamed the world, picking up the horse-nomad culture and other "barbarian" traits. In THIS work I have made the swap from horse-nomad to boat-nomad. Where the Unicorn Clan were horse masters, and composite bow users, the Unicorn half of the water-tribe are boat masters. They'd have to be, Hakoda is operating a very successful campaign while being several hundred years of technological improvement behind. In all other things assume Katara and Sokka to be blue-eyed Mongolians with a love of the sea instead of Tengri (god of the sky)
> 
> Gempukku: Gempukku is the formal ceremony by which a child becomes an adult, and more importantly, a samurai. There is no set age for gempukku to happen, just as there is no telling when a culture decides that its members are now adults. I purposely decided to make Katara and Sokka "non-adults" in this chapter. Otherwise, I saw no reason why Zuko would have spared Sokka. Don't worry, they'll get their moment. I bet you can guess when… if you try.
> 
> DEVIATIONS FROM STANDARD:
> 
> The Water-Tribe armistice: Why? You ask? As a major theme of this work, I am sort of normalizing things. The "Bad" guys are a little less, mouth-frothingly evil, the good guys are a little less sugar and light. As such I wanted to give the Southern Water-Tribe a moment of glory. They actually kicked some ass for a while, until The Dragon of the West showed up. Even then Azulon was so impressed he offered them the armistice. I feel like Azulon(despite how little we see of him) was a bit more of a "magnificent bastard" than his sons. At the very least, he was more honorable than Ozai (not that that's saying much). Also, the armistice later becomes more of a necessary plot point. Stick around to find out HOW
> 
> Color schemes: I've changed colors to fall more in line with the L5R universe. FN colors are Black, Red and Gold (red for the Scorpion, Gold for the Lion and black because DUH). The Unicorn clan's colors are white and purple. So where cannon water-tribe is blue they are now purple. I regret nothing.
> 
> Sokka V Zuko: Nose break, no kids allowed: In the episode, Sokka's spear is thrown to him by one of the children in the group. This HAD to be changed. This is interference in the "duel" and would make the child complicit in the proceedings. Things might have got… messy if that had happened here. So, we'll just avoid that, and make Sokka clever enough to roll to a concealed weapon. I think I'm ok with that.
> 
> Who thaws out the soldiers: In the show, Zuko sort of just lets the rest of the soldiers melt his men out of the ice statues that Katara puts them in. Akodo!Zuko knows where his responsibilities lie. They're his men damnit! Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure at this point only Zuko, Iroh, and Lt Taro are the only firebenders on the ship. Jee isn't here yet, but don't worry he's coming!
> 
> Thanks for reading this far! I know this is a lot more A/N than I normally do, but… I'm just super stoked to be moving into the main story. Bear with me? Thanks, you're the best.
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko meets an old "friend" and shouts some more!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 10 June 2018  
> v2: 16 Jun 2018: minor formatting changes


	2. The Southern Port

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated AK, for ass-kicking
> 
> It contains dialog from S1E3 "The Southern Air Temple" where appropriate.
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Autumn, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

_Fire-Lord Ozai, Lord of the Fire Mountains, Warden of the Eastern Seas, Guardian of the Sun and Keeper of Akodo's Peace; Honored father,_

_I write you bearing news concerning the great undertaking you have tasked me with. I have found the Avatar. He, coward that he is, was hiding in a village…_

Zuko stopped, thought for a moment, and crossed out "in a village." He continued preparing his first draft.

_...was hiding in an unknown location in the south pole. He is an Airbender of prodigious skill and I can confirm his ability to bend water as well. He appears as a thirteen-year-old boy, with the traditional arrow markings of his people about his face and hands. He is accompanied by an ancient flying creature known as a Sky-Bison as well as…_

He chewed his pen.

_...as well as two water-tribesmen of uncertain lineage. He was last seen flying north from my position on a heading which you will find included with this missive. I am in pursuit._

_I pray this news brings you as much pleasure as it gives me to write it. My prayers are with you for your continued good health and long reign._

_Lt Commander,_

_Akodo Zuko_

Zuko nervously examined the letter, studying it for anything he could do to improve it. He had  _never_ written to his father before, hadn't dared, and so this, his first real report of progress, had to be absolutely perfect. He was certain he hadn't  _lied,_  but he had sworn that the village would remain unharmed. Just because honor meant nothing to the Air-Nation didn't change  _his_  responsibility to his oaths. His  _father_ , however,had made no oaths, and would very likely try to make an example of the Unicorn village if given a reason. Giving his father the opportunity to do such a thing would be a violation of what he had sworn. Such slippery deceitful tactics might be the way of the Scorpion dojo, but Zuko was a Lion and  _honor_ was the important thing.

Nodding to himself he began to copy the letter out again, on better paper and with finer brushstrokes.

_Fire-Lord Ozai…_

 

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

 

Zuko had wanted to continue his pursuit immediately, the burning need to set upon his prey was all consuming. He was a hunting hound again, and he had caught his prey's scent. The heading the Avatar had been on last put him on a course for the Southern Air Temple and Zuko wanted nothing more than to set a course and fly after the boy at all possible speed.

The ship, however, had other plans. It had been severely damaged by the collapsing ice and began to take on water at anything even  _resembling_ top speed. Zuko, his fury banked to astronomical levels, was forced to divert and limp into Shiro Patola, the Naval headquarters for the southern fleet.

As they made their desperately slow way into port Zuko instructed his men not to speak to anyone of the Avatar. The Fire-Lord should be the first to know. If they were asked they were to simply say they were on the path of a dangerous fugitive. Not a  _lie,_  just not the whole truth.

Zuko strode down the front ramp, letter to his father tightly rolled in his hand after the ship had,  _finally,_  made port. The naval base dominated the area and was surrounded by the smaller civilian dwellings that always cropped up at any permanent military installation. It was a rough life this far south, so far from the Fire-Nation home island, and the people that strode through the dirt-packed streets had a frontier air about them.

"How long do you imagine repairs will take uncle?" Zuko said casting his eye around at the other ships in their berths. There were quite a few, and he began to worry about having to wait in line.

"I could not say. While I commanded fleets when I was the Crown-Prince, I myself was never a navy man," Iroh said as he gazed up at the battered front of their ship. "It might… take some time."

"Unacceptable," Zuko snapped. "We need to continue the pursuit!"

"Pursuit? Of  _what_  I wonder?" came a new voice approaching them.

Zuko looked up and his face bent into a sneer. "Zhao," he snarled.

" _Commander_  Zhao" the man corrected.

Bayushi Zhao strode forward confidently and gave a slight bow to them both. He was a tall man, of a height with Zuko, his topknot, and sideburns so finely trimmed and coiffed it simply screamed attention to detail. A new, and somewhat horrifying, development was the red sash Zhao now wore diagonally around his uniform. A sash indicating he had been formally named a firebending  _master_.

 _It will be impossible to pretend I don't notice, the way he puffs his chest out like a seabird._  Zuko thought bitterly.

Zuko's uncle came to the rescue.

"Our congratulations on your accomplishment Bayushi Zhao, long may your fire serve the Nation" he intoned, formally bowing. Zuko bowed along with him, grateful his uncle had used the plural and saving him from having to choke out those words out himself. Despite his mother's best efforts, courtesies and manners did not come easily to Zuko when their object was not worthy of Zuko's respect.

 _"Those who are least worthy of respect must be shown the most courtesy as they are no better than rabid dogs and will bite with less provocation,"_  she had said.

Zuko preferred to put rabid dogs down, not engage them in banter.

"My thanks," Zhao said, also bowing over his smirk. "The Fire-Lord's son and brother are always welcome in  _my_  port. What service can I offer?"

"We seek ship repairs," Iroh said smiling.

 _Sun's name I am going to owe uncle some excellent tea after this,_ Zuko thought. Anything so that he didn't have to talk to this piece of filth.

"That's… quite a bit of damage," Zhao said bemused, taking in the wrecked front end of Zuko's ship.

"Yes, an iceberg… collapsed on top of us," Iroh said.

"Indeed? Icebergs can be quite dangerous in the far south. You must regale me with the details," he looked directly at Zuko. "Join me for a drink?"

 _DAMN,_ Zuko thought. It would be the height of rudeness to turn down a direct request such as this without good cause.

"My concern is my ship Commander, I do not have time for…"

"Nephew…" Iroh said warningly. The rules of courtesy were just as important to him as the rules of war.

"In an hour," Zuko spat, gritting his teeth. "I have a personal matter which cannot be put aside."

"Of course," Zhao said, smirk still firmly in place. "General Iroh?"

"I would be honored. Do you have any Ginseng tea? It's my favorite."

 

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

 

The drinks weren't poisoned at least.

The conversation, on the other hand, was nothing  _but_  poisonous. Zhao, if nothing else, was an excellent verbal combatant. Zuko did his best to stay silent, allowing his uncle to take the lead unless asked a direct question. Unfortunately, one of the questions he  _was_  asked directly was if he would join Zhao for dinner the following night, so that they could discuss  _timetables_ for his ship repairs. Zuko had no choice but to accept as it became increasingly clear that Zhao was perfectly willing to hold the repairs as a hostage. He could say almost anything he liked and Zuko had no choice but to grit his teeth and bear it. Zhao certainly made the most of the opportunity.

"I don't understand! Why in the Sun's name does he want to have dinner!? He despises me! And he knows damn well that I'd kill him if given the justification!" Zuko raged later that night in the temporary quarters Zhao had "gifted" him.

 _As though he weren't REQUIRED_   _to house fellow officers visiting port._

"He is a Scorpion," Iroh said, placidly sipping tea. "It is their way to seek victory through deception and guile. Do not allow him a place in your mind nephew, that is the best advice I can offer you."

"So, how goes your search for the Avatar?" Zhao said smoothly the next night at dinner.

"It proceeds as it always does," Zuko said flatly not even looking up from his food. "I will find him, catch him and deliver him to my father."

"So, nothing  _new_  on that front?"

"You ask because…?" Zuko found himself unable to remain silent.

"Just inquiring as to the progress of a mission handed down directly from his majesty. One might even say that I might feel a certain  _responsibility_  should he have been found in  _my_  jurisdiction," Zhao said smiling broadly.

_He knows._

"If one  _were_  to find him here in my jurisdiction, it would most certainly be his solemn duty to report that fact to me."

"Were he one of  _your_  soldiers, certainly," Zuko shot back.

"We all have a duty-" Zhao began.

"To the Fire-Lord," Zuko finished. "If I should have found evidence of the Avatar I would most certainly be obliged to report it  _to_   _my father."_

"The Avatar is the only thing that can stop the dream of Oda, to conquer the world," Zhao spat. "If you have  _any_ information regarding him and have even a  _shred_ of loyalty left in you, you will tell me. Now!"

"I have nothing for you, Commander Zhao," Zuko said darkly.

Zhao shook his head, feigning sadness. "You disappoint me Prince Zuko," he said as guards began to fill the room. "Lying to a superior officer is a punishable offense, even for  _you_. I  _know_  you encountered the Avatar, I  _know_  he is just a small boy and I  _know_  he eluded you. You're pathetic."

Zuko stared at him.  _Lying would serve no purpose at this point, he must have a spy on the ship._

"And you believe you would do better?" he growled.

"Against a lone  _child_  and two Unicorn soldiers? I  _know_  I would do better."

_He didn't mention the girl? Any spy on the ship would have told him how there had been another waterbender! That means…_

"It is a far more serious crime," Zuko intoned rising slowly to his feet, leaning on his fingertips over the table, "to read missives intended for the Fire-Lord's eyes alone."

Zhao's eyes widened. "In my jurisdiction-"

"You are compelled to read the letters of royalty? To open the  _private correspondence_  of a  _Prince_? Intended for his father, the FIRE-LORD?!" Zuko bellowed, the wood at his fingertips beginning to smolder.

Zhao changed tactics. "This mission is too important to be left in the hands of a teenager! His Majesty-"

"ASSIGNED THE TASK TO ME!" Zuko roared. "Or did you somehow forget that I have been hunting the Avatar for all these years! I WILL capture him, bring him before my father and be restored to my rightful place!"

"You are nothing!" Zhao snarled, leaping to his feet. "Just a banished prince. If your father ever intended to restore you to his side he'd have  _done it by NOW!_ In his eyes you are just a  _failure,_  a disgrace to the Fire-Nation." He smirked, "you have the  _scar_  to prove it."

Zuko's vision went red. "MAYBE YOU'D LIKE ONE TO MATCH!" he screamed flipping the table over and advancing on Zhao.

Iroh's hands slammed together in a loud clap. "Prince Zuko!"

By the barest margin Zuko reigned his fury under control, he was practically nose to nose with Zhao.

"An Agni Kai," Zuko breathed. "Sundown."

 

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

 

Zuko stalked back and forth in his quarters awaiting the position of the sun.

"You allowed him to manipulate you," Iroh said chidingly.

"He stole my letter for father right out of the hawkery! What did you expect me to do?" Zuko snarled, still pacing.

"To charge him with treason, search his rooms, find the evidence and then behead him," Iroh said flatly. "Not get into a shouting match like a pair of children fighting over whose turn it was to play with a toy."

Zuko stopped in place.  _That… could have worked,_ he admitted grudgingly in his head.

"As it stands now you  _cannot_ kill him."

"WHAT?!"

"You challenged  _him_  Zuko! Had it been the other way around it would have been nothing to simply end him! But if your honored father hears that you have been challenging and killing his senior officers…?" He tapped the rank at Zuko's collar. "This can just as easily be taken away. And  _then_  how will you hunt the Avatar."

Zuko roared wordlessly in fury. Finally settling, he sat down and glowered at his uncle.

"Very well," Zuko spat angrily, "no killing."

The Agni Kai was a nearly sacred form of dueling between two benders, often used to solve disputes between family heads and high lords. No armor, no weapons,  _no_  physical contact. ONLY bending. Zuko's blade of fire was an anomaly, being a weapon  _made_  by bending, but in a situation such as this, the spirit, as well as the letter of the rules, would have to be followed. Zhao was Zuko superior officer, and a member of the prestigious Bayushi family, the second oldest noble house in the Fire-Nation. As such every detail had to be perfect.

Duels between the Akodo and Bayushi families were the stuff of legend, almost symbol of the eternal conflict that boiled within the Fire-Nation. Akodo had founded the Nation and the Lion dojo, his younger brother Bayushi had founded the Scorpion. Where Akodo led armies, Bayushi plotted intrigues. Where the Lion charged the front, the Scorpion flanked from the rear. There was overlap of course, Akodo wrote that that deception was one of the fundamental keys to warfare. Your opponent should believe you stationary when you were moving, on the move when you were at rest, and attacking from the west when you were in fact about to sweep down on them from the east. Bayushi, despite his tendency to plot and scheme, advocated  _unwavering_  loyalty to one's superiors. Rigid discipline was necessary to maintain secrecy and security, rigid adherence to the one's oaths regardless of personal conviction. Without passion and control, there could be no firebending, no Fire-Nation. Without the Lion and the Scorpion, there would be no  _conflict_ , and both brothers also knew that it was conflict that shaped a man and their Nation to a razor's edge. Conflict, whether in combat or in intellectual debate, was the grindstone by which greatness could be achieved.

So, back to back at opposite sides of the large arena, resting on one knee, Akodo Zuko and Bayushi Zhao waited for the sun to touch the horizon. Still as statues, preparing for greatness.

"Remember your breathing nephew," Iroh said pacing nervously.

"Yes, uncle."

"Strong  _sure_  movements."

"Yes uncle"

"Do not allow him to begin a kata chain, Jeong-Jeong always taught..."

"YES. UNCLE." Zuko replied through gritted teeth.

The Sun's curve touched the horizon, a gong rang.

Both men, shirtless and in loose-fitting pants, turned as one to each other, bowed and then the duel began.

 

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

 

Zhao  _was_  a master.

Whatever trickery he favored in conversation the man was supremely gifted at firebending. His movements were precise and powerful, a textbook performance.

Zuko's skills were rougher.

Not only did he walk a ragged edge between rage and control, he had also spent the bulk of his training learning to fight the other nations, naive to the fact that he might need to fight his own people one day.

Zhao advanced on him, fire pulsing in a steady rhythmic beat towards Zuko. Zuko slapped the flames out of the way, watching, seeking weakness to Zhao's form.

There was none to be found. One kata flowed smoothly into another and by the time Zuko could intercept and deflect one wave of fire another was already upon him.

Zuko lept skyward seeking to surprise his opponent with a downward blast from his feet. Zhao merely leaned forward, low to the ground, causing the blast to miss entirely. He bent in the "pointing hound" kata and filled the space where Zuko would land with fire. A textbook response to an over-aggressive maneuver.

Zuko staggered.

High strike, middle and back to high, Zhao refused to allow Zuko to gain his footing, finally knocking him down to the ground.

Zuko began to rise only to see that Zhao had left the ground, his face twisted in a snarl of victory, fire forming at his fist, intending to strike Zuko point blank. In his right, unscarred, eye.

 _That_  was a mistake.

Given Zhao's obvious intended target and his predilection for textbook maneuvers, his landing site and the position of his legs could not have been clearer had he told Zuko his plan. Zuko  _understood_. It was not just enough to kill him. Zhao wanted,  _needed_ , to humiliate Zuko. Just as he had been humiliated by Rainesu over a year ago.

Spinning horizontally to the ground Zuko dodged Zhao's strike and sent out a small blast of fire that took the commander off his feet.

_He will roll right to his feet and attempt "burning sands"_

Zuko countered with "crashing mountain."

" _The textbook only favors those who fight the ignorant,"_  Zuko thought to himself. His base was solid, and he pursued Zhao, never allowing him time to begin a kata of his own.

The momentum had shifted.

_Predictable. So very predictable._

Zuko was a step ahead, a breath faster, a note ahead in the song that was their dance. Zuko could practically  _see_  Zhao's moves before he even thought them. Zuko further complicated his enemy's situation by allowing his flames to stick to the ground where Zhao deflected them, continuing to power them with his chi. Gradually the arena began to fill with eerie red light.

A veritable  _sea_  of fire.

Zhao fell.

Zuko advanced quickly on the prone man, fists prepared to strike, teeth bared in a ferocious snarl.

Zhao was breathing heavily. "Do it!" he shouted bitterly.

With a roar, Zuko's fist flew forwards.

A fan of blackened earth darkened the dirt for three feet directly beside Zhao's, still intact, head.

The gong rang. The duel was over. Zuko had won.

"That's IT?!" Zhao roared, enraged. "You ARE a coward!"

"You are defeated.  _Again_ ," Zuko sneered in condescension, "and  _I_ need a new ship. Yours will  _do_ I think."

Traditionally the victor of an Agni Kai was allowed to make a single demand from the defeated party if he spared his life, hence the reason it was used for the resolution of disputes. Zuko would take Zhao's ship, a much larger and more powerful vessel, and would avoid having to wait for repairs.

Zuko wasn't sure that he wouldn't rather just kill him.

"Also," Zuko continued, "I will be sending a letter to my sister, the Princess Azula, at the  _next_  port I put in at. If it arrives  _before_  the letter to my father she will know the reason and the one  _responsible_." Zuko finished and turned away a massive grin appearing on his face.

_Ancestors this feels good! I should come back and beat this dog every other month! Maybe then he'll learn some-_

Zhao let out a cry of rage behind Zuko and before he could even turn completely Iroh was there. He'd grabbed Zhao's striking foot, which had been about to bend fire into Zuko's retreating back, and with a move much like gently throwing a ball, he flung Zhao almost all the way across the arena.

"So,  _this_  is how the great commander Zhao behaves in defeat? Disgraceful," Iroh said, his face a mask of sneering disgust, barely contained rage lurking behind his eyes, the Dragon of the West in full form. "Even banished, my nephew is more honorable than you will  _ever be."_  He bowed, a hint of a smile at his lips. "My thanks for the tea. It was delightful." He turned and strode away, gathering Zuko to his side with a look.

As they exited the arena Zuko looked down at his uncle "Did… did you really mean that Uncle?"

"Of course. You know I love ginseng tea."

 

* * *

**A/N: Hello! Welcome to the end of the chapter! Hope you enjoyed it! I got to say I am truly pleased with the traffic I've been getting. All views are good views!**

**You may have noticed that this chapter is a bit shorter than some almost all of the previous ones. For this book, I did my best to limit myself to events actually depicted in the canon show and some exposition that explains what Zuko was doing when he was off camera. For the most part, I did not invent all-new adventures for our young samurai to go off and do. The upshot of this is that chapters will be shorter and will correspond (roughly) with the events of an episode. You have my solemn vow, here and now, that if a chapter falls below a certain size (2-3k words) you will get a double post. Or I will merge the two chapters together… or something. Either way, I'm not going to cheat you my loyal readers (all dozen or so of you) out of content. So do I vow.**

**Remember to like/kudos and comment! I always enjoy hearing from you and as long as you're not anonymous I WILL respond if you ask questions, raise concerns etc. etc.**

**And now the rumbly meta bits!**

**Hiding the Village: Zuko in his letter to** **home here shows that he has, at some level anyway, an understanding of how his father works. I see no reason that Ozai (Mr-Kill-it-with-FIRE) would have spared Katara and Sokka's village. He would have purged it, as an example of** _**what happens** _ **when you try to hide the enemies of the Fire-Nation. Zuko gets that, which shows that even now he knows his dad is an honorless POS. He just hasn't really made the connection. The fact that Ozai will do honorless things does not somehow translate in his brain to Ozai being, in himself, honorless. This whole season is going to be riddled with such hypocrisies. Look forward to it.**

 **Social Combat: In L5R a Samurai must be diverse in his skills. Just because you are a hurricane-ass-kicker does NOT make you a good samurai. You need to be able to defend yourself socially. Tricking an opponent into revealing something dishonorable or goading them into a fight they cannot win is a powerful ability. In the game, the three character "classes" are bushi (fighter) shugenja (priest/wizard) and** _**courtier.** _ **A Courtier is no less a samurai than any of the others but simply favors talking over swords. Still very dangerous, as Zhao demonstrates here. He manages to turn a situation where he is about to be killed for treason into a duel he has every expectation of winning. Zuko is very much NOT a social butterfly,** _**Azula** _ **is the "people person" after all.**

 **The Thousandth Landing: Minor note here, I do love the Agni Kai music, I generally really like all of the music in this show (SECRET TUNNEL! SECRET TUNNEL!) But the music which, to me, best fits with Akodo!Zuko while fighting is the "The Thousandth Landing" from the newer Battlestar Galactica. Give it a listen on the Youtube for the full** _**Akodo** _ **experience.**

**DEVIATIONS FROM THE STANDARD:**

**Zuko's Status: I have a confession to make, I did not re-watch the series again until I was somewhere in the middle of this book. This means that the whole first book was written without reference to most of the source material. The BIG thing that I missed was that Zuko was not just banished from the capital and his home, but from the Fire-Nation at large. (I think I had THAT particular "O shit" moment when I was writing the "Avatar Roku" chapter). In contradiction to this I have Zuko spending at least 18 months or so on the top of a mountain, essentially going over what I later realized was the bulk of "Bitter Work" (S2E9). Canon!Zuko is a total outcast, still a prince (somehow) but somehow still able to be bossed around by a commander in the navy. Akodo!Zuko is in a bit of a different position, he is a prince and an officer and even if he was NOT Zhao would still be honor-bound to show him courtesy. Zhao cannot just say, "I'm going to interrogate your soldiers and hold you prisoner, because I said so." He has to have an** _**acceptable** _ **reason for doing so, otherwise he would be showing disrespect to the Fire-Lord, in the form of his son. The fact that Ozai probably doesn't give a shit is immaterial. Courtesy is one of the tenants of bushido, just like Honor and Duty.**

 **References to the Fire-Lord: At various times in the ep the Fire-Lord is referred to. Zhao says that "he raised a coward," in reference to the fact that Zuko refuses to kill him. Zuko even speculates that "he is a fool" (if he thought that the Earth-Kingdom would bow to him). Those lines are completely unacceptable for samurai. You most certainly would be allowed to** _**think** _ **those things, possibly even** _**imply** _ **them, but to show obvious disrespect, in front of an** _**enemy** _ **of all people, is beyond foolish. Being visibly disloyal and disrespectful to one's lord is unacceptably rude and, more importantly, dishonorable.**

 **Taking the Ship: Pure invention on my part. It makes sense that there might be a mechanic to save lives when the participants of the Agni Kai are important people. But the ep also never really addressed what happened to Zuko's ship. Was it repaired? Somehow I doubt** _**Zhao** _ **would have made it a priority after getting his ass handed to him. So Zuko, in a fit of badassery, takes his enemies ship** _**legally** _ **.**

 **The Duel: I altered the rules a bit. In the show, Zuko very** _**obviously** _ **makes contact with Zhao when he does his little firebending-breakdancing move. I altered it a bit, the idea that the Agni Kai should have no physical contact just struck me as appropriate. I regret nothing.**

**Thanks again for reading!**

**NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

**Iroh drinks tea! Zuko learns about personnel management and sets a village on FIRE!**

**TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

**Original post date: 16 June 2018**


	3. The Raid on Kyoshi Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated BV, for Burning Villages
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate from S1E4 (The Warriors of Kyoshi)
> 
> Reader discretion is advised

**Late Autumn, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai.**

The HMS Devastator was magnificent.

She was longer, had better engines, better weapons, better quarters, better…  _everything._  She was one of the newer ships of the line, barely even a year old. One of the new models of dreadnaught, she was close to two hundred yards long; two hundred yards of storm-cloud grey Jang Hui steel. She practically bristled with weaponry; ballista, and siege trebuchet, and ship-to-ship catapults. A truly impressive death-dealing instrument of Fire-Nation supremacy.

Zuko could barely contain his excitement as he strode up the gangplank.

As he strode aboard his new ship he was followed by the entirety of his old crew. He most certainly would not abandon them to whatever misdirected impotent vengeance Zhao would try to inflict upon them. Even if he hadn't had any concern for them there was the simple fact that the current crew of the Devastator had formerly been  _Zhao's._  Could he trust any of them?

It turned out, however, that his concerns in that regard were entirely unfounded. Zhao's executive officer practically dance with glee after seeing his superior taken down a peg. After a polite, albeit extremely cheerful, conversation over a pot of Iroh's tea it was clear that while Zhao obviously had friends among the  _Admiralty_  he was almost universally despised by the rank and file.

So, Zuko had supplemented his crew with elements of Zhao's old one, a true necessity considering the sheer size of the Devastator. Zhao's XO happily provided a list of sailors that he deemed "fit for service under the command of a prince." Sailors he implied disliked Zhao almost as much as he did, a category of person there seemed to be no shortage of. Despite this Zuko ordered Sgt Rin to keep a wary eye on all of them. Scorpions were notorious for worming spies into the most unlikely of places.

After they sailed away, and Shiro Patola disappeared over the horizon, he gathered the whole crew on the deck for a mission brief.

"We are hunting the Avatar," he'd begun, pacing back and forth before the assembled formation of sailors and soldiers.

He gave them all a brief overview of everything he knew. The Avatar had superior mobility in the form of a flying bison and traveled in the company of an untrained waterbender and an unblooded warrior around his own age. He instructed them to keep a wary eye on the sky and to report anyone who even  _smacked_  of water-tribe heritage to an officer in any ensuing shore leave they received. That completed he launched into an introductory speech he'd composed based on advice from his uncle and  _LEADERSHIP_. He commended the newer elements of his crew on the excellence of their ship, and how they had kept her in such fine shape despite their former commander having "so much  _else_  on his mind." Zuko took the group's muted chuckle as an excellent sign. He then voiced his sure conviction that both halves of the crew would integrate completely and would perform to the same exemplary, and exacting, standard he had come to expect from the Fire-Nation Navy. He wrapped up the speech with a brief warning NOT to spread rumors about the Avatar when they did next make port. The Fire-Lord would make the decision if the news should be made public.

He needn't have bothered with that last part.

They had made a brief detour to the Southern Air Temple and, after scaling the mountain, discovered that it was still uninhabited. Zuko was confident, however, that the Avatar  _had_  been there. The great door that had been impassable during his previous visit was now wide open revealing a sanctuary entirely filled with statues of former Avatars.

With no clues as to the boy's next destination, Zuko set a course for Fire Fountain City, to take on coal and hopefully catch any rumors about flying herd animals.

He got a great deal more than he bargained for.

The city was practically abuzz with the news. All around the world the great temples of the elements had been alight for the first time in over a century. The Avatar had  _returned_  and it seemed the whole world knew. Rumors abounded in every in every shop, inn, tavern and tea house. The Avatar was on his way to the North Pole; no, he was in Ba Sing Se; no, he was in the capital, Otosan Uchi, fighting the Fire-Lord as we speak!

As Zuko fought through the disparate and contradictory rumors he received letters, not just from his "spies," but from the Army and Navy's high commands. He had a formal letter from the Admiralty which somehow managed to censure him for his duel with Zhao and yet  _promote_  Zuko to full commander. Something to do with "maintaining a rank commensurate with his effective military capacity." Not even Iroh could fully decipher the logical contortions required for that to make sense. As far as Zuko could determine because he had gotten a full commander's  _ship_ , and they couldn't take it away from him, they had just decided to make him a full commander, albeit begrudgingly.

His letter from the Army was a different matter. The tone was the same as it normally was, dry and to the point, almost a  _love letter_  by comparison to the communications he got from the Navy. It informed him that, due to his increased rank (by their reckoning he was now a lieutenant colonel) and transport capacity, they would be assigning him two further companies of soldiers. A company of rhino-lizard cavalry and a company of engineers, to operate the many weapons on the ship and to provide support in the form of construction and maintenance.

Zuko found himself nearly overwhelmed.

The docks the Devastator was moored to became a madhouse; sailors and soldiers loading and unloading supplies, packages, fuel, food, and mounts. Zuko spent the better part of a week just trying to just untangle the mess of people and to discern just  _where_  he was going to put them all. All of that while his uncle dragged him from tea shop to tea shop, ostensibly to gather information and to help Zuko distill the wild rumors down to something that made sense, discarding the more fantastical ones.

All true signs pointed towards Kyoshi Island.

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As Zuko's officers assembled in the briefing room aboard the Devastator (another improvement of his previous ship) Zuko marveled at the changes that had been wrought over the previous weeks. It certainly wasn't the motley crew he had grown used to. His initial infantry company had been inherited in the siege of Doromuri and while they were loyal, hard-working and well trained (at least they were after  _Zuko_  got his hands on them) they were not what one would describe as a "spit-and-polish" group of ji-samurai. Zhao had once described them as the "dregs of the teapot" and while Zuko was loath to agree, even tangentially, with that bastard it did not change the fact that they were… scruffy. They fought like cornered puma-goats, and Zuko would take them in a fight against a twice their number of Earth-Kingdom soldiers but they hardly seemed, visually at least, like what he had always envisioned Fire-Nation samurai soldiers to look like as a child.

The officers sipping tea in his shiny new briefing room were an entirely different matter.

Sergeant First Class Uesugi Rin had been with him the longest, almost two years. He was a career soldier with over twenty years of experience, who had joined the colonial legion the very day he completed his gempukku. Even more taciturn then Zuko, it had taken the lively conversational skills of Iroh to reveal that he was a colonial of a minor house, from the province of Hokubu, north of Yu Dao. He alone among Zuko's original soldiers fulfilled the exacting standards that Zuko had once believed all Fire-Nation samurai should meet. As such Zuko had no problem with letting him, a non-commissioned officer, sit at the table as the de facto commander of the infantry, a position that Zuko technically still held.

First Lieutenant Dosei Taro was Zuko's XO, inherited with his old ship after the surrender of Shiro Yoritomo, and he had done nothing but impress Zuko in the year since. The man  _was_  precision; in his firebending, his navigation, his grasp of command and in his speech. Zuko had been worried that the little bespectacled man would be useless in a fight, but over time, and numerous sparring sessions, he had more than acquitted himself in Zuko's eyes.

Captain Matsu Haki was the commander of the cavalry aboard the ship. A big boisterous man with a wild bushy beard, he had been heard to lament, quite loudly, that his wife was going to be upset with him. She was hoping he would be done with his service soon so that he could return home and help her raise their  _seven_  children. He was also heard to confess, more quietly and with a wink and a nudge, that he honestly only liked going home long enough to  _add_  to that growing hoard and then returning to the fight. He was a stereotypical Matsu, a member of the Fire-Nation aristocracy in name, honor, and prestige only. In all other regards he acted like any other common soldier; loud, fiery, and excited by the prospect of combat.

Lieutenant Bayushi Bo, acting commander of the engineers, was an anomaly. She was a Bayushi, a member of a noble house known for their duplicitousness and their loyalty to the Scorpion Dojo. Zhao was a prime example of that house's and Dojo's character practices. For all intents and purposes Bayushi  _was_ Scorpion. So, the fact that Lt Bo was a  _Lion_  and, according to her personnel file, a former honors student of the Akodo War College was… surprising to say the least. Upon her arrival aboard the Devastator Zuko had immediately ordered Rin to keep an extra close eye on her. Having  _one_ Bayushi placed on the ship he had rested from the claws of  _another_  was far too suspicious for his liking. Rin had reported that, thus far, the woman seemed both knowledgeable and dedicated, if slightly shy.

Zuko reserved his judgment.

Second Lieutenant Kyoka Yama was the designated navigator, freeing Taro up from the task so that he could manage other elements of the ship. The genial round-faced man performed his duties adequately but based on his behavior in the mess hall Zuko was already thinking of adding a few percentage points to the food requisition budget.

Third Lieutenant Tanaka Tsumara was the supply officer, rail-thin to Yama's stoutness. The two seemed bound for conflict, Tsumara's acidic tone clashed violently with Yama's simple optimism. It had not devolved to bickering where Zuko could hear yet, but he judged it to be a simple matter of time.

Where once Zuko had only had charge of Taro, Rin and the small complement of soldiers and sailors he now had a variety of conflicting personalities to manage and personnel to keep in fighting trim, a task which began to take more and more of his time as the Devastator cut a furrow through the water, steaming towards Kyoshi. At first, he had been somewhat sullen at the need, time away from his pursuit of the Avatar was time  _wasted_  after all. But after a few words from his uncle, and more contemplation of  _LEADERSHIP_ , he had come to the conclusion that the more disciplined and combat-ready the people under his command were, the easier it would be to engage and capture the Avatar.

 _Always use the resources to hand in the best manner possible,_ Zuko thought, as he contemplated the assembled his officers accepting their cups of tea from Iroh; their faces displaying varying levels of dismay at being served by the "Dragon of the West."

"What else do we know about Kyoshi Island?" he asked aloud after they all had been served.

They had all read the file that Zuko had requisitioned from Fire-Nation intelligence. It was mostly a historical summary detailing how the island had been named for a prior incarnation of the Avatar who had been born there. Or rather had been born on the  _peninsula_  and had later created the island by breaking it away from the Earth-Kingdom mainland through the use of her fantastic Avatar powers. So legend held anyway.

"Naval records indicate Kyoshi is also the home of the Unagi, sir," Lt Taro supplied. "A minor sea serpent known for its prodigious size, waterbending attack, and diet of elephant-koi. Not particularly aggressive, but it has been known to attack if it's food supply is threatened."

"Well, we'll be sure to pack our own lunches, won't we?" Zuko said dryly.

The officers chuckled.

"Sir?" Lt Bo had raised her hand and continued at Zuko's nod. "Sir I did a paper on the island at the Academy, sir? It's also guarded by an order of samurai. The… Kyoshi Warriors?" She trailed off at the end, beginning to seem hesitant for some reason.

"Lieutenant?"

"Well sir-" a flush began to creep up her cheeks making it now very obvious that she wished she hadn't spoken up at all- "In my paper… I wrote that, despite the texts downplaying their skills, the simple fact that we haven't made any effort to conquer Kyoshi Island, with its natural anchorage and excellent location suggested to me that they… might be quite good."

"A reasonable assumption," Zuko said.

Her shoulders slumped in relief. "Thank you, sir. It's just that… my professor didn't much care for my assessment."

"Their counter-argument was…?"

"That I was a foolish child who didn't know what I was talking about?" It all came out in a rush and the rest of the table looked uncomfortable.

"That. Is idiotic," Zuko said with a scowl. "I guess we will see when we get there. What else did the texts say, or  _not_  say, that you find significant?"

With only that small measure of prompting Lt Bo launched into a rather detailed, and enthusiastic, explanation of the non-bending, all-female group of tessen wielders, who, despite being nominal members of the Earth-Kingdom, favored a style much similar to waterbenders. Over the course of several minutes of lecture, aided by several diagrams she seemed to conjure from nowhere, it became pointedly obvious that she was a great admirer of the group as she spoke at length about their skills and honor.

"I am sure they are all very noble and dedicated Lieutenant," Zuko interrupted with a rasp, "but I hope you don't mind if we have to  _kill_  a few of them?"

The table chuckled again.

Bo blinked. "Of… of course not sir," she said, her face heating again.

 _There is no reason to mock her,_ Zuko thought. _She is NOT Zhao. Besides "It is a foolish officer who does not encourage and challenge his juniors,"_ he mentally quoted from  _LEADERSHIP._

" _You_  will accompany the raiding party lieutenant," Zuko said aloud, fixing her with his yellow eye. "Your sole task will be to observe and assess these warriors' capabilities. I will expect a full report, and eventually a publishable paper on the subject. Am I clear?"

"Y-yes sir," she said blanching.

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The Unagi, it's grey bulk impressive even at a distance, could be seen thrashing above the waves and spitting jets of water as the island came into sight.

"Mr. Dosei, set engine to quarter speed! I'm not here to fight wildlife," Zuko barked, standing on the bridge, his arms behind his back.

"Set quarter speed, aye!"

 _It is unlikely that the boy will still be here given how long it took us to get underway,_ Zuko thought, glaring out at the approaching island.  _I will have to MAKE these people tell me where he went._

He wasn't sure that he was looking forward to that.

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"Captain Haki, advance at speed! Standard containment, no one gets out!" Zuko roared at the cavalryman.

"Yes sir!" he shouted back, and the rhino-lizards took off; a cloud of dust in their wake, and an extremely nervous Lt Bo trying not to fall off of the back of one.

"I would have thought you'd be mounted, sir," Sgt Rin said quietly, coming up behind him.

Zuko made a very undignified sound. "To the ashpits with that. I'm an infantryman," he said loudly enough for the soldiers behind him to hear. He suited his words by beginning to march up the hill towards the village.

"YES SIR!" Rin boomed and stepped off, right behind him, the rest of the company in tow.

As they marched up the dirt track to the village Zuko's infantry began to sing an excessively violent marching song. Roaring along with the rhythmic beat of their marching footsteps, the chorus explaining, in no uncertain terms, exactly what fate awaited all the enemies of the Fire-Nation.

"Always good to make a first impression," Zuko said to himself, a savage grin forming on his face.

The village of Kyoshi was nearly invisible from the sea, nestled as it was in a small valley between two larger peaks. Its wood and thatch constructions were rigidly uniform, in noticeably straight rows, clearly indicative of Earth-Kingdom sensibilities.

Not too dissimilar from the way Matomo had been.

_Here's hoping this village has more honor than that._

As the marching song died away, Zuko stepped through the main gate into town and stood next to a large wooden pillar with a statue of a fan wielding samurai at its top. The silence was deafening as the population of the town poked their heads out of their windows and doorways to look at him.

He could practically  _smell_  the fear.

"Where. Is. The. AVATAR?!" Zuko roared, breaking the silence and striking the pillar on the last word, igniting it in a blaze of crimson flame.

There was no response, save the gentle sighing of the wind.

"Sergeant, tear this village apart until you've found the Avatar, and bring me the villagers! I want them alive!" he snapped at Rin.

"FAN OUT!" Rin barked.

Moving in groups of three, the infantry moved forward, entering houses and dragging their occupants out into the street as they had been instructed to do earlier. The peasants would be interrogated until Zuko had what he wanted. Hopefully they would cave quickly; he needed to make up for lost time.

But after a few dozen villagers had been extracted the Kyoshi Warriors struck.

Seeming to move as one they flew down from their hidden positions on rooftops, landing kicks on Zuko's soldiers, knocking many to the ground. They were clad all in green, the copper-colored tessen they wielded in each hand flashed brightly in the sunlight. Such was their uniformity of motion and dress they seemed all identical, with their red eyeshadow and white-painted faces matching the carved statue that still blazed at the village's entrance. They blocked and struck at Zuko's ji-samurai with a flowing grace that they could not match.

 _They ARE using water style!_  Zuko thought in the brief moment before he had to defend himself from two of them.

The first, the shorter of the pair, moved in an elegant manner, almost a dance, opening and shutting her fans rapidly, not allowing him to have a good sense of their position as the slashed and struck at him. It was a fantastic technique that forced Zuko on the defensive as he studied her. The second warrior was… significantly  _less_  graceful, and nowhere near as competent, despite being the taller and more muscular of the pair.

 _Focus on the short one, she's the more dangerous of the two,_ Zuko thought coldly.

The key to fighting water style was to be solid, balanced, and above all in control of your strikes. Never overextend. Several times the shorter girl attempted to redirect his katana's blade only to find that Zuko would not be budged and it was only her exceptional reflexes saved her from losing her head.

The tall one was a different story. She seemed to have an excess of raw talent, once even knocking a blast of fire back at Zuko with her tessen, but she seemed to lack training.

 _She must be new. Hasn't even had time to grow her hair out._  Zuko mused as he darted back and forth between the two of them, blasting fire and swinging his sword in controlled rhythmic beats, his root solid.

All around him battle raged. The initial surprise of the Kyoshi warriors' assault had faded and Zuko's ji-samurai had gone to work with the skill of the battle-hardened veterans they were. Working in teams they managed to hold their own against the less numerous Kyoshi warriors and it would have been a stalemate if not for one thing.

_Fire._

Haki had made his way from the outskirts of the village, still mounted, roaring and sending blasts of fire at the defenders and letting the rhino-lizard do what it had been trained to do, its armored horn swinging and piercing. The village was beginning to burn in places and the peasants began running to and fro, adding to the chaos as they tried to avoid the fight and put out the fires that, unchecked, would consume their homes.

As the village burned, the battle grew more frenzied, the tempo growing to a fever pitch. Zuko moved to offense, surging between his two opponents, exhausting their defenses with powerful hammering sword strikes and surges of fire. Finally, he managed to score a hit on the shorter warrior's thigh, cutting through her haidate, and fanning blood from the tip of his sword.

"Suki!" the tall one roared, throwing themselves between Zuko and the downed warrior.

_Wait… "Roared?" What the Ash? I thought Bo said they were all women?_

Zuko drew up into the defensive Ko Gasumi stance and stared at the snarling painted face… with a crooked nose.

"You must be the  _ugliest_  girl I have ever seen Shinjo Sokka!" Zuko said, grinning horribly. The Avatar WAS here!

"Yeah?! Well so's your FACE!" Sokka shouted back.

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"I KNOW!" Sokka screamed as he charged.

Zuko rolled past him as he did so, coming up next to the girl "Suki" and placing his blade at her throat.

Sokka froze in place.

"I am not in the habit of fighting  _children!_ " Zuko snarled, the now furiously burning village reflecting malignant red in his blade and in his eye. "Maybe one day, when your ancestors deem you worthy of gempukku, I will do you the honor of  _ending_  your life for you, but that is not this day." He narrowed his eye. "I am only here for the Avatar, tell me where he is and  _this one_  need not die."

"HEY! Over here!"

And there, as if summoned by magic, the boy stood at the entrance to the village. His staff in hand, a determined look on his face.

"Finally," Zuko snarled. Ignoring Sokka and Suki he sheathed his katana and advanced on the Avatar, throwing a massive gout of fire as he did so.

The two met in the middle of the burning village, air colliding with flame creating booming explosions that knocked away combatants in green and red who tried to aid one or the other. The Avatar still refused to engage Zuko directly, spinning this way, then that, dodging more than striking. Zuko drew power from a solid stance and kicked out at the boy, flame bursting in small controlled gouts but never quite hitting. Finally managing to anticipate the boy's evasive maneuver Zuko managed a solid kick on the Avatar, blasting him backward, knocking his staff away again.

Which turned out to be a mixed blessing as the boy landed right by a pair of discarded war-fans.

Zuko, seeing too late the boy's good fortune, tried in vain to close the distance to prevent the Avatar from using any large-scale air kata. But he wasn't fast enough, and the boy, a tessen either hand, blasted him across the street and through the side of one of the village huts.

Zuko roared in rage, and at the sound the ruined hut burst into red flames. Every fire in the village began to take on the ruby hue of hot coals as Zuko exploded his way out of the debris to discover that the Avatar had disappeared. He moved through the village like hunting hound, ignoring the combat around him looking for his prey.

The prey he found a few minutes later, already mounted on his sky-bison, flying away.

"COWARD!" Zuko roared at the retreating bison.

Calming down took some effort, but the rational side of him knew he needed to get back to the Devastator if he was to have any chance of continuing the pursuit.

"RIN!"

"Sir?" Rin responded, sounding calm despite the blood on his sword and a scalp wound that was trailing a thin streak of crimson down his face.

"The Avatar is fleeing! Get the men back to the ship, double time!"

"The village, sir?" Rin asked, gesturing around and the burning buildings.

"Leave it," Zuko roared over the inferno. "They know the strength of the Fire-Nation now!"

 _This is NOT Matomo,_  Zuko thought watching the constant stream of peasants flee the burning buildings into the woods.  _There's no need to kill them all._

"Yes sir."

The withdrawal went smoothly and as they jogged back to the coastline, Rin held out a war-fan he must have taken from a defeated opponent.

"Souvenir, sir?"

"Give it to Lieutenant Bo. She'll appreciate it more I think," Zuko said with a snort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hello and welcome to the end of the chapter! You done good, you done real good.
> 
> Remember to like/kudos/subscribe/follow/comment/pm/dance with glee if you want to. I love feedback.
> 
> And now some long-ass meta-bits. I love 'em but you can skip 'em.
> 
> Promotion to Cmdr: I threw that in there sort of as a whim on the first draft of this chapter. In later days I have had a new thought as to why Zuko got a promotion when he is disliked by the Navy. I think it's Ozai's doing. Now hear me out here, I think that despite what most people think of Ozai I think he is still interested in what his son is doing. It is most likely only because no matter how banished Zuko is, he is still a reflection of his father. So, seeing the boy who begged not to fight at an Agni Kai fight one, humiliate the person who got in his way, and take something precious from him… yeah, I think Ozai would be very pleased. Pleased in a "there may be hope for him yet" kind of way.
> 
> Ships and Tech level: The tech level in Avatar is weird. You've got what are essentially pre-WWI ships armed with catapults and trebuchets? Very odd. I get that, in a world where people can throw stuff around with their mind, there would be less of a need for gunpowder but still. The ships, and the naval dominance of the imperialist Fire-Nation, actually puts me in mind of an age of sail British Empire (hence the HMS designator). While I did play around with the idea of converting the whole thing to wooden ships I decided that the iron ships of the Fire-Nation where an integral contextual part of the story. The TANKS, on the other hand, are RIGHT OUT. No TANKS!
> 
> Ranks in the FN military: Ugh, this is one of those things that irritates me, the ranks in the FN navy and army must be all KINDS of convoluted. How does Zhao go from commander to frigging Admiral in a single bound? There is a serious, and important rank in there in most modern navies, the rank of Captain! My own resolution to this is that because the FN is originally more of a land-based power they only use the official rank of captain for army stuff. Seems odd I know that the captain of the coat will never hold the actual rank of captain but there you go. That being said I'd like to clarify the ranks of the new OCs presented in this chapter. Haki and Bo are army soldiers using army ranks. For the navy, I'm again falling back on older British naval conventions. Taro is a first lieutenant, the army equivalent of a captain. The other two LTs are essentially just a step above ensign, or an army I know, and not super relevant at this point, but it's good to know that Haki and Taro are the same rank, while Bo, Yama, and Tsumara are the same rank (discounting time in service/time in grade which is a whole other thing)
> 
> DEVIATIONS FROM STANDARD
> 
> Infantry and inter-branch rivalry: In the military service there is a lot of rivalries. Inter-service rivalry between the army, navy, and marines; rivalry between the different elements of each; rivalry between different companies. It's an intrinsic part of life (and before you ask, Yes I do know that first-hand) Infantry is just about the worst though. If you're infantry you've been raised with the belief that you are just flat out better than everyone else. So, for Zuko to make the choice to NOT ride into battle is significant. He's isn't going to abandon the soldiers who he's been fighting alongside for two years to play with the "shiny new toy" he's sticking with them. Mostly for morale/dramatic purposes.
> 
> Strategies on urban warfare: I just have to laugh at poor old Canon!Zuko when he just strolls into Kyoshi with like three rhino-lizards and eight dudes. Come on man, that is NOT how this works, you gotta dismount if you're going to do any "urban pacification." How he thought he was going to fight the supremely agile Aang on top of a lumbering lizard is beyond me. Probably the answer to that right there, he didn't think. So Akodo!Zuko does things right, surrounds the village quickly with cavalry, then using some serious intimidation as he makes his way up to the village. I have no idea what marching cadence they were singing, probably some combination of "Napalm sticks to kids" and "airborne ranger." Either way, it's going to scare the villagers shitless which is kind of the point.
> 
> Thanks for reading this far! Extra Credit for you!
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko investigates a prison as all hell breaks loose!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 24 June 2018


	4. Prison Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated W, for world building.
> 
> It corresponds chronologically with the events of S1E6 "Imprisoned"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Early Winter, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Zuko seethed.

It had been a full MONTH since he'd lost the Avatar somewhere over the Earth-Kingdom. The boy had fled, like the honorless coward that he was, north by north-east from Kyoshi, out over the Chin peninsula, and Zuko had made the choice to try to quickly circle around the jutting spar of land to catch him in Wanshu bay.

Except he hadn't, he had LOST him.

There had been no sign of the boy at all, not over water or on any of the foot patrols that Zuko dispatched; essentially invading the Earth-Kingdom himself.

Plotting the last heading he had been able to take from the bison on his maps revealed that the boy had been on track for the free city of Omashu. But if he had swung east he could be trying to make the long voyage over the Burning Sands to Gaoling or even the great city of Ba Sing Se itself. For all Zuko knew he could have even stopped in the swamps his maps showed in a blue-green hue just north and east of Chin.

Every week, every day, every hour, and every minute the circle that was the Avatar's possible location grew wider and wider. He could have even doubled back to the South Pole again by now. The only thing for it was to visit coastal villages in the Earth-Kingdom and Colonies and harass the peasants there, just hoping that one of them had looked up from their drudge work long enough to see a sky-bison. Zuko would order landfall and dispatch Cpt Haki to bully the locals. Zuko couldn't be sure that if  _he_ went ashore that there would even be a village  _left_. His rage bubbled and seethed like a boiling pot, and he spent long hours in meditation and solitude trying to reign it back under control.

_Twice now you've met the Avatar and TWICE now he has bested you,_ his father's voice seemed to whisper in his mind.

_NO! He ran away! Fleeing like a coward!_

_Which means you did not CAPTURE him. You FAILED!_

He found himself going from calm to blinding fury at the smallest provocations. He had nearly bitten Lt Bo's head off when she came to deliver her report on the Kyoshi raid. She had fled, leaving scattered papers on his cabin floor.

Zuko sighed, his rage evaporating like fog.  _Now I will have to apologize,_ he thought bitterly. He mused for a moment, then nodded his head.  _At the next staff meeting. I should apologize to them all._  He shook his head ruefully, organizing the discarded papers.

" _The punishments you set for yourself restore the most honor, but never the full amount lost from a lack of discipline,"_  Akodo had written.

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"Sir! Priority hawk for you, sir!" a sailor shouted stopping a respectful two paces from Zuko, then saluting fiercely.

"Very well," Zuko said, holding out his hand for the letter without looking.

He found himself in an  _almost_  good mood today. The previous evening, he had called a staff meeting specificallyto apologize to Lt Bo and the officers at large. He had stopped just short of fully prostrating himself and he believed that his officers had responded quite well. Taro had spoken for them all when he said that they understood the situation and would not hold it against him. They understood that he was Akodo and they all knew what was at stake for him; his pride, his honor, and potentially even the throne. Now they had set a course north-west towards the Eastern Fire Islands where they would take on coal and begin sweeping up and down the colonies again, hoping for news.

In Zuko's last port of call he had been quite surprised by an addendum to the Admiralty's usual contemptuous letter. The post-script, tacked on as an apparent afterthought, informed him of newest duty as a full commander in the Fire-Nation navy. To wit, he was now in part responsible for the upbringing of the youngest members of the officer corps. The half-dozen or so thirteen-year-olds with fresh armor had filed on board the Devastator, looking like nothing so much as a gaggle of lost turtle-ducks. They were loud, boisterous, cheerful and undisciplined in the way that only thirteen-year-olds could be. At least they  _had_ been undisciplined until they saw that their new commander was the banished Prince of Fire. Zuko ruthlessly used their awe, and fear, to ensure that they learned the exacting standards he expected from persons under his command.

And then he ran them ragged.

Kenjutsu training with Rin, firebending with Haki, arithmetic with Tsumara and all-around discipline and practical tactics with Zuko. Today had found Lt Yama too busy with the task of making sure the Devastator did not run aground on some nasty reefs to teach his scheduled lesson on navigation and the use of the sextant. Zuko shouldered the burden himself, desperately trying to conceal that  _he_  wasn't overly skilled with the complicated piece of metal.

As Zuko took the black ribboned priority message scroll he prayed fervently, albeit silently, to his ancestors that it was about the Avatar, thus giving him an excuse to abandon the mentally grueling process of training tiny morons. As he read his eye grew wider in surprise and he turned away from the confused ensigns without a word.

"MAPS!" he shouted, breaking into a trot towards the command bridge. "I need maps!"

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Hinowa was a new acquisition in terms of the colonies, having been captured in the year before Zuko's gempukku. The province, now the southernmost of the Fire-Nation colonies, was not as fortified or as well mapped out as most of the older ones. Which was a problem… as the entire province was now in open revolt.

Half of the Eastern Fleet seemed to be present just off the rocky shores of the province as they disgorged battalions of Fire-Nation legionaries to fight roving bands of angry peasants and earthbenders.

Hinowa had been an experiment, one that the Fire-Lord would most assuredly not be repeating.

In the older colonies the ancient Rule of Abrogation had been in effect since they had been founded, a millennia-old agreement between the four nations in times of war. The nations had fought before, in the distant past and in the modern day, and while the borders did not change very often when the did the Rule came into effect.

Any bender born on the wrong side of the line was to be expatriated back to their elemental nation.

In the modern era this was exceedingly common as only the oldest of the Fire-Nation colonies were entirely comprised of the people of Fire. Even there, in Yu Dao, it was not impossible for a child to be "born to the stone" as the people there still called it. In the colonies the rule, the  _absolute_ rule was very simple, after you discovered you could earthbend you had one week to make a decision. Exile or seppuku. Unsurprisingly, as most people likely to be making this discovery were children, exile was the most commonly chosen option. One or both parents took the child east or south to the free cities, or to Ba Sing Se itself. They went to be with their people, to be trained in their art and become full samurai, thus fulfilling their destiny. The third unspoken choice was to stay and fight, but that would simply result in death, surrounded by enemies as you were.

Hinowa had been different.

Fire-Lord Ozai had declared that the Rule was the major reason for the length of the war. Why should the Fire-Nation surrender potential enemies born in their lands? Under his policy,  _all_ earthbenders were instead removed to work camps on iron rigs, far out at sea away from their element. There they would work, repairing or making vessels for the Iron Fleet until the war was over. Or they died.

Unfortunately, they had all just  _escaped_  and were even now tearing up the province they had been extracted from.

Reports were… conflicted.

Zuko had spent the last week interview or interrogating the survivors of Prison Rig #004 and while numbers, smaller details, and levels of  _incompetence_  had varied from person to person one thing remained constant in every story he was told.

Female _._  Water-Tribe.

Personnel also spoke of a younger boy with her who had pelted them with chunks of coal at rapid speed, but they couldn't be sure if he was just another earthbender or… something else.

Something like an AIRbender.

"Coal?" Zuko said quietly.

"Yes, Highness," Warden-Commander Takei intoned gravely, sipping on the tea that Iroh had  _insisted_  on brewing. "They gained access to the coal stocks, through one of the ventilation shafts. After the little Unicorn girl-"

" _Unicorn_ girl?"

"Ye- yes highness," Takei said, showing nervousness for the first time. "I don't know why the land detachment sent me a Water-Tribesman but I let it pass. She spent most of her time in the prison haranguing the other inmates with trite motivational speeches about hope. Truly pathetic."

"And yet here you sit, amidst a province in flames while your very 'broken' spirited prisoners destabilize the entire region," Zuko snarled, looming over the seated Takei.

"Highness, I assure you that these savages will prove no more effort for you to crush than-"

You think that  _I_  am going to rectify your mistake?"

"Highness? Surely you came here to-"

"The Fire-Lord has charged me with hunting the Avatar. I will not become embroiled in another provincial dispute. YOU will be taking care of this situation…  _Commander._ "

"But, my prince, I'm just a warden! I don't know anything about-"

"You are  _samurai_ , commander. You will fulfill your duty-" Zuko spun around to leave- "or you will DIE trying."

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Unsatisfied with the statements they had taken from the guards of the former prison, Zuko decided to take the Devastator out to the prison rig. Perhaps there would be something to be learned from the battle site itself.

They arrived at the massive iron construction a few days later, a few dozen miles off the coast, just beyond the southern reaches of the colonies. It was eerily quiet as they tied off the ship and marched on board where they found signs of battle, fire scars, and the aforementioned scattered coal.

"What do we make of this?" Zuko asked of his officers after a few minutes of looking over the scene.

"Well, there's more than enough coal here to replenish our stocks," Lt Taro said with a shrug.

"Definitely a work camp, judging by the unfinished boats in dry dock," Lt Yama offered.

"It's… it's a bit bleak, sir" Lt Bo said quietly.

"Bleak" was an apt description. As Zuko inspected the prison he found himself surprised by the conditions. Prisons were not necessarily his area of expertise but this seemed a bit much to him. Certainly, it made sense that there should be places to put criminals, but to imprison a samurai in a place such as this, even an enemy, was a different matter. Zuko had always been taught that disrespect to a defeated enemy was disrespect to oneself, and to have such an… austere place as this for samurai was unacceptable.

Zuko usually preferred to do his enemies the honor of killing them. They might have better fortune in the next life.

Having known of the existence of the prisons was one thing, it was a quite different matter to see them. These prisoners here had most likely simply surrendered when the province had fallen to the Fire-Nation expecting the same treatment that was always afforded a defeated enemy. They most likely thought themselves and their children secure in the laws of warfare and the rule of abrogation and the betrayal of those unspoken, but still iron-clad, rules infuriated Zuko.

_What sort of honorless bastard would treat his fellow samurai, and CHILDREN, this way?_

_THAT would be the Fire-Lord… your father,_ a voice whispered in his head.

Immediately his disquiet at the conditions aboard the prison was snuffed out and buried, overwhelmed by a flood of guilty self-loathing. His  _father_  had made the decision to try this, therefore it was the  _right_  thing to do. The Fire-Lord was never wrong. Zuko knew that absolute truth even before his terrible mistake, the punishment for which merely reinforced the lesson to the level of dogma.

His eye on the ground, his knuckles popping as he clenched his fists in internal self-directed rage, he was startled from berating himself by the sight of something blue breaking up the monotony of grey steel and black coal on the deck. He crouched down and extracted a leather strap, dyed deep blue, with an icy blue stone at its center. He'd never seen it before, but it practically screamed Water-Tribe. And where there was chaos, rebellion and Water-Tribe he was certain he would find the Avatar.

_Must have belonged to the Shinjo girl,_ he thought, then smirked. _Unless the boy has started wearing girl's jewelry as well as dresses._

"I'll have to remember to ask," he chuckled darkly to himself.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hello and welcome to the end of this not so long chapter! Why it's so NOT long that means you get a Double post! (cue balloons, confetti, and noisemakers) should be up… well, it should already be up unless the internet gods are angry.
> 
> Equally short meta-rambly bits below! Read or skip at your leisure.
> 
> Exposition: This chapter is ALL exposition and world building. The source material (episode 6 of season 1) is all Katara centric. Good episode but leaves the prospective Zuko POV author in a bit of a situation. Zuko is IN the episode… for 11 seconds… and has no lines. Which leaves me with the interesting task of figuring out what the boy has been up to for 2 whole episodes as he wasn't in the "The King of Omashu" either. So pretty standard Zuko stuff, brooding, shouting, being silently angry, then shouting some more. All of that and seeing the aftermath of a large scale breakout of (now rebel) earthbenders.
> 
> George Takei: not really a note but can I say that I love that good old Sulu was in this episode? I cannot read the few lines I gave the warden without hearing his voice.
> 
> Imprisonment and Unhappiness: This chapter actually gave me the most trouble of any I have yet to write. The version you're reading is the THIRD complete rewrite. It's the imprisonment thing. While punishment for crimes in medieval Japan was harsh, it was only so for the peasantry. The samurai got off easy, saving the fact that seppuku is pretty brutal. As I've gone ahead and placed ALL benders in the samurai class it creates a bit of dissonance in the story to me, you really DON'T imprison samurai. You put them under house arrest, allow them to commit seppuku, or just KILL them. The main problem for us is that prisons (being in, rescuing from, etc) are pretty integral to the plot. You've got this prison rig, boiling rock and where ever Iroh is in season 3, so I can't just do away with the whole concept. This chapter is my resolution of that conflict. Lots of hand-waving, lots of world building.
> 
> Daddy issues: Here we see for the first time our boy Akodo Zuko REALLY disagreeing with something that his father has done. And once he realizes that he immediately shuts himself down. Ozai has done a number on the poor boy. Don't worry he gets over it.
> 
> LATER TODAY on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko shouts a lot, and sees… WHAT CANNOT BE UNSEEN!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 1 July 2018


	5. The Dangers of Hot Springs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated F, for fork in the road
> 
> Contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E7 "The Spirit World"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Winter, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"Sir? I have a question," Lt Bo said as she and Zuko walked through the jungle.

Zuko simply grunted in acknowledgment, most of his attention on any potential animal threats that might emerge from the underbrush.

"Sir, it's about the rules concerning fraternization? What exactly constitutes fraternization? And what does Akodo's  _LEADERSHIP_  say about it?"

"An odd question. Why do you ask?" Zuko said, pushing aside a large shoot of bamboo and holding it for the Lt.

"Well, sir-" she began as a slight blush tinged her cheeks- "it's sergeant Rin, sir. I was having a conversation with him and about halfway through he stopped me, saying that it was fraternization."

Zuko frowned, entirely missing her blush, and considered.

"Generally, fraternization is more concerning socializing as I understand it. One is not generally supposed to socialize with people one commands."

"So, are  _we_  not supposed to be talking sir?"

"A conversation concerning regulations is not socializing lieutenant," Zuko growled, growing irritated with the dense foliage and simply slashing through it with a blast of fire.

"Yes, sir."

"Sergeant Rin has always been a very by-the-book soldier," Zuko continued, "and while  _technically_  you and he do not occupy the same chain of command, you are a lieutenant and he is a non-commissioned officer. Generally, work-related conversations are to be kept to a minimum."

"Oh," Bo said quietly, radiating disappointment as she unconsciously grabbed ahold of the tessen she had started carrying recently.

_Why in the ashpits is she asking me about this?_ Zuko mused, blasting bamboo and small shrubs out of the way going deeper into the jungle.  _I suppose she and Rin do have a need to converse regularly concerning their respective companies. Rin is most assuredly my de facto infantry commander, seeing as I spend most of my time on the bridge now. He's been doing that for… Sun's blood it's been almost a year and a half."_

He snorted aloud in consternation at himself. "As always lieutenant you bring up excellent points."

"Sir?"

"I was just thinking about how poor sergeant Rin has been serving in an officer's capacity for a rather large portion of time. I will have to see that high command recognizes his merits and put him forward for promotion. Then you can talk to him as much as you want."

Bo beamed. "Sir, that would be wonderful!"

"What's  _truly_  wonderful is a hot-spring bath!" shouted a voice from just ahead.

Zuko rolled his eye. "Uncle! We do NOT have time for this!" he shouted as he stepped into a clearing. "The men have gathered enough fresh water and it is time to mo-"

Zuko cut off as his lone eye took in the terrifying nightmare vision of his uncle Iroh sitting in a natural hot-spring… entirely naked. Steam was in abundance, thankfully obscuring any true unpleasantness, but despite that Lt Bo squeaked, a noise Zuko had never heard from her before, and spun around covering her eyes.

"General Iroh! Your clothes!" she cried.

"Are on that tree over there, yes. Be sure not to get them mixed up with yours should you decide to join me," Iroh said, waggling his eyebrows and eliciting another squeak from Bo.

"Uncle, I would greatly appreciate it if you did not traumatize my lieutenants," Zuko said only half humorously. "Besides that, it is time to leave!"

"Alright then!" Iroh said, standing suddenly. The mist was  _not_  able to compensate.

"UGGH-" Zuko shielded his eye- "FINE! A half hour, that's IT. If you're not back before then I am  _leaving_ you!"

Iroh settled back into place, smiling smugly, as Zuko ushered Bo from the scene.

"It's safe now," Zuko said, shaking his head.

"I just saw the Dragon of the West…  _naked,_ " she said in a hushed scandalized tone.

"Yes, and I'd appreciate it if you forgot about it. Uncle doesn't need any more ammunition in his quiver."

"Was  _that_  fraternization?"

"Only if you had gotten in with him I think. Also, back to one of your original questions, I don't think  _LEADERSHIP_  is to be trusted in a discussion of fraternization. By all accounts… Akodo was a great deal like my uncle."

"Damn him!" Zuko growled. He'd waited a full  _hour_  and his uncle still had not returned to the ship. The foliage felt the full brunt of his irritation as he burned his way back to the clearing, Cpt Haki in tow.

_If he doesn't come willingly I'm having Haki carry him back in a sack!_

But they'd arrived back at the hot-spring only to find it empty of steam, water, and his uncle. The ground around the site had been violently disturbed and great piles of rubble lay all around.

"Landslide?" Haki asked.

"Earthbending," Zuko snarled, his eye narrowing. "They have my uncle. Get back to the ship, double time. I want your company turned out and ready to ride inland. Tell Taro to set condition one and remain on high alert."

"Yes, sir!"

Haki left at a sprint as Zuko began to examine the area. He wasn't particularly gifted at tracking but had managed to learn enough while hunting bandits in the colonies to be at least semi-competent. Earthbenders were always heavy and left footprints that were easy to track unless they bent them away. These earthbenders had not, and the trail he found led him up a small rise to a dirt track road where he found the heavy treads of ostrich-horses proceeding east. Bending fire, he charred an arrow pointing along the road in that direction, the with another gush of flame he lit a large tree so the cavalry could find the start of the path.

Zuko turned east, narrowing his eye.  _If they harmed him I will burn the eyes right out of their heads,_ he thought a snarl coming to his lip.

He began to run.

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He'd thought he'd lost them.

The road had forked in two directions a few hours after the cavalry had caught up with him. This time the earthers, displaying sound tactical thought,  _had_  bent all sign of their passage out of the road. It would have worked, but one of the scouts spotted a discarded sandal off the road a little way down the left branch.

"Clever bastard… uh sorry sir," Cpt Haki said, apologizing.

"No, you are correct. 'Clever bastard' just about sums up my uncle," Zuko said fighting back another snarl. "He'll be trying to leave us signs and slow them down."

It had been almost five hours since Iroh had gone missing and Zuko could tell that he was gaining on the earthbenders. Whatever his uncle was doing to slow them down was working, he just had to keep up the pace.

_When I find him, I am going to make him throw ALL his tea over the side and-_

"Sir!" one of the scouts yelped, interrupting his thoughts.

Zuko turned and caught a glimpse of a bison… flying through the air.

_Oh great a METAPHORICAL fork in the road too,_ laughed the part of him with a sense of humor.

"Captain Haki-" Zuko paused, every nerve in his body screaming at him to begin riding after his prey- "take a squad… in pursuit of the bison. Leave trail sign. Observe but do  _not_  engage. I have a relative to recover."

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They found evidence of a fight a few hours later.

"Looks like the general tried to make a break for it sir," one of the scouts suggested to Zuko. "I've got sign of earthbending here and here. They pursued him down the hillside."

"Excellent work corporal. Fan out!" Zuko shouted. "Figure out where they've gone to!"

They found the enemy a few minutes later, about to maim his uncle.

They were gathered in a small depression in the ground and one of the benders held a massive boulder over Iroh's hands, stretched out and chained across a large flat rock. Zuko's fury, held in check only by his focus on the hunt, exploded out of him.

"AKODO!" he roared, flinging himself at the floating boulder, managing to knock it away with a kick. His sword of fire leapt into his hands and he struck Iroh's chains off.

"Glad you could join me, nephew," Iroh said grimly, rising and grinning savagely at the bender who had been about to crush him.

"I'm just glad they let you put on pants uncle."

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The fight against the earth Samurai was over quickly.

Had Zuko and Iroh been alone, the fight might have taken a few minutes but with a platoon and a half of cavalry charging down the hillside at the startled earthbenders, the fight was over before it even truly began.

As they rode back towards where the Avatar's bison had been spotted Zuko chastised his uncle, roaring, and swearing and making (mostly likely idle) threats about the man's tea set. Iroh took the shouting with good grace, smiling benevolently on the back of Zuko's rhino-lizard.

"But if I  _hadn't_  been captured you wouldn't have gotten a lead on the Avatar, would you?" he said smiling widely.

"Oh, so your falling asleep in the bath and being taken unawares by the enemy was done with MY best interests at heart?" Zuko spat.

"I'm  _old_ ," Iroh said, laughing. "Everything I do is wise and full of meaning. Inscrutable even!"

"You're ridiculous," Zuko said quietly. The worry he had not known he felt for his uncle's safety had evaporated.

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"Report," Zuko said quietly.

Cpt Haki had positioned his observation point just outside of the village of Sen Lin. The village at first glance seemed almost abandoned as most of its buildings had achieved a rather advanced state of disrepair.

"He's gone sir," Haki began. "He departed a few hours ago, flying east. Before that, he seemed to be doing battle with some sort of angry spirit monster."

"Spirit monster?" Zuko asked, only a little skeptically.

"Yes, sir. He… turned it into a panda," Haki said, nodding wonderingly. "Haven't seen it since."

"Good enough, captain." Zuko rose from his crouch and pitched his voice back to a normal level. "Standard containment. Let's go ask some questions, shall we?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Welcome, my friends to the end of this terribly short chapter! Hope you enjoyed it none the less.
> 
> I have little to say about this chapter, it speaks for itself, and really doesn't depart over much from canon. Simply more Akodo shenanigans, with a little background OC shenanigan as well. For spice. Shenanigans spice.
> 
> …Probably shouldn't use the word shenanigans so much?
> 
> All questions, comments, and concerns may be addressed to my PM/comment box.
> 
> Have a good day. I regret nothing.
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko CAPTURES the Avatar! (for about 30 seconds)
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 1 July 2018


	6. Avatar Roku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated V, for violence.
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E8 "Avatar Roku"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Midwinter, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai.**

Zuko, his focus narrowed to the path ahead of him, galloped back to the sea.

The peasants of Sen Lin had not been very grateful to the Avatar for whatever "exorcism" he had performed and in a manner of minutes Zuko had been told the whole story. A kidnapping spirit, a burned forest, and the Avatar with a burning need to head west to the Shrine of Roku. All this had been revealed from simple, albeit rather intimidating, questioning by Zuko. No  _examples_  had been necessary.

_Fire Crescent Island?_ Zuko thought, his brow furrowed as he urged his rhino-lizard to go even faster.  _What under the Sun would possess him to fly INTO the Fire-Nation? And why in such a hurry? What happens on the Solstice?_

The peasants hadn't been able to answer any questions about motive, which was unsurprising. Plausible deniability was practically their main survival tactic.

The solstice was only a few days away now and, based on what Zuko knew about the bison Appa's top speed, (Haki had overheard the Shinjo girl talking to it) the Avatar would have to fly without stopping  _and_  at top speed to make it there in time.

_I will send a message to the Admiralty. We can set up a blockade around the island._

_Or…_ another voice countered in his head, _you could have them set up and intercept blockade in mid-sea, that way you can be sure to catch the boy personally._

It was… less tactically efficient than he would have liked but Zuko had a larger concern. He knew that he should not give any weight, or even idle thought, to the words of such an honorless creature as Commander Zhao… but the phrase "If your father ever intended to restore you to his side he'd have  _done it by NOW!"_  had well and truly unsettled him. Much to his shame, he was no longer certain that his father would restore him if  _someone else_  captured the Avatar. He could make all the excuses and denials he wanted, but "flushing out," "discovering," "pursuing," and "being instrumental in the capture of" the Avatar was not the same thing as "capturing."

He could NOT take that chance.

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Zuko once again thanked his ancestors for his victory over Zhao and the ship it had given him. The Devastator was  _fast_ , so fast in fact that not even a day after Zuko had left Sen Lin they caught sight of the Avatar's bison. As dawn broke the second day it became clear that they were gaining.

_The damned thing must be exhausted,_  Zuko thought as he stood on the bridge, his eye never leaving the speck in the distance.

"Sir?" Lt Taro said quietly, coming up behind him.

"Yes?"

"With respect, hadn't you better get some sleep? You've been standing there for… quite some time sir."

_Do you really think I could sleep this close to my prey?! While he's in SIGHT!_ Zuko roared in his mind. He said none of this aloud, however, only turned around, looming over the shorter man and fixing him with his one gleaming yellow eye.

"Sir, it is my duty to see to it that my captain is well-rested and able to complete his mission sir," Taro said dryly.

_Well, at least he is not a coward._

"So noted, lieutenant," Zuko said with a sigh, "I will try to get my head down."

Taro nodded. "I'll send a runner the moment he enters extreme outer fire range, sir."

"Thank you, Taro. When we finally capture this little bastard, I will see to it that you get your own ship."

"My thanks highness, but I do not require any motivation to do my duty," Taro said as he saluted and bowed.

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The Avatar and the blockade were now in sight.

The Iron Fleet was infinitely responsive to threats. Fire-Lord Azulon had developed a near mania for naval precision and power in the years following the battle of Jang Hui. He had built the Great Gates of Azulon, instituted the practice of naval drill, and had a million messenger hawks trained for the sole purpose of communication between the Admiralty and the Fire-Nation navy. Naval message towers had been built in even to most remote corners of the sea, allowing the steady flow of information and orders back and forth. As such the veritable  _wall_ of grey iron cruisers and battleships was an expected but still welcome sight as they appeared in Zuko's eye, right where he had requested them.

_There will be nothing to stop us this time,_ he thought fiercely, a ruthless sneer twisting his face.

"Gunner! Check your fire! Ensure none of our volleys hit the blockade ships," Zuko shouted, peering through a telescope at the bison.

"Aye aye sir," Lt Bo answered, finally halting the trebuchet fire that Zuko had ordered as soon as the bison came into range.

Zuko watched as the blockade began to throw volley after volley at the, no longer tiny, speck ahead of him. Appa weaved and rolled, ducked and dodged, somehow managing to hold its passengers on its back… until suddenly it didn't. Zuko watched, slightly impressed despite himself, as the Avatar dove his bison low, almost into the water and managed to catch the figure that had moments ago plummeted from the sky.

Bringing him  _tantalizingly_ close to theDevastator's prime firing arc.

"Open fire!" Zuko roared, bringing the spyglass back up to his eye.

_THERE he is,_ he snarled internally as the spyglass brought the image into sharp relief, the boy piloting his bison, the Shinjo girl tending to her rather dazed looking brother.

_Of course HE would be the one to fall_.

There was also a lemur.

Zuko brought the glass down and rubbed at his eye.

_No. Didn't imagine it,_  he thought as brought the glass back up.  _That is a lemur… holding a fish?_

He shook his head and was nearly knocked off his feet as an explosion rocked the ship.

"What the-"

"Sir! The blockade ships  _aren't_ checking their fire!" Bo shouted, anger clear in her voice.

"Ash and bone, what are they doing!" Zuko snarled, raising his spyglass back to his face, this time examining the ships. His eye grew wide when he found the answer he was looking for.

"Zhao," he growled furiously. Of all the people to get his priority message, it  _had_  to have been Zhao? Or did the conniving pile of ash steal this one too? Fire continued to fall all around Zuko's ship, think and deadly.

_He will just blame it on his gunners if he manages to kill me._

_We could… fire back?_

_No,_  he thought with a shake of his head,  _his lack of honor does not invalidate my own. Besides, uncle would be disappointed in me._

"Mr Dosei! Redline the engine! Get us out of their firing arc!"

"Aye, sir! Heading?"

"SAME HEADING," Zuko snarled.

_I will not be thwarted by this slimy pile of festering filth!_

Zuko, now without the aid of his spyglass, watched as Appa the bison wove his way through the fire until, finally, not a hundred yards from the blockade a blast found its mark.

Or  _would_  have, had the Avatar not simply blown it out of the way.

The bison rocketed over the blockade. They were through.

"SUN BLIND HIM!" Zuko roared, not entirely certain if he meant Zhao or the Avatar. The ship shuddered violently as if in agreement.

"Sir! We've got a fire in the engine compartment! One of the blasts must have knocked something loose!"

"Bo! Get a damage team to the engine room, double time!" Zuko shouted, eye still on the now rapidly diminishing form of the Avatar's bison.

"Yes, sir!"

"Set max speed, Taro!" Zuko ordered.

"Sir? But-"

"Just give me all she's got! Use your best judgment. We cannot lose him now!"

"Sir, blockade ships moving… to intercept US?!" Lt Yama yelped in surprise.

"Damn him. What in the Sun does he think he doing?" Zuko snarled, gritting his teeth. "Maintain course! Sound condition one, brace for impact!"

Zhao would NOT keep Zuko from his prey.

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"I don't understand why he let us through," Lt Taro said a few hours later, "The man hates you, I half expected one or the both of you to leap to the other's ship and begin trying to kill each other."

"Do not think I wasn't tempted," Zuko said as he examined a detail map of Crescent Island in the briefing room. "But the fact is that Zhao doesn't know where we are going."

"Sir?"

"I may have  _neglected_  to put that particular piece of information in my request to the Admiralty, lieutenant. Given what's happened I can't really be called paranoid, can I?"

"I… suppose not, sir." It was clear that Taro wasn't happy. "So, he's following our smoke trail then?"

The engines, despite Zuko's engineers' best efforts, were still not operating at full capacity. They were also belching thick, oily, and highly visible smoke into the air. Zuko had tried to shake Zhao with a few course changes in the night but had discovered the man still on his tail when the sun rose.

"We'll set a course for the repair facilities at Kyuden Shino," Zuko said tapping the map.

"Sir?" Taro looked shocked. "The Avatar…"

" _I_  will launch a powered skiff here," Zuko continued, gesturing to the map at a point a few miles off the coast of Fire Crescent Island. "It should be night at that point and with any luck Zhao will miss me and simply follow your trail. Five hours after I depart you will arc around the island and return. I will meet you south of the island,  _with_ the Avatar."

"Aye, sir."

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Moving at speed the three samurai raced up the mountain stairs to the Shrine of Roku.

The large temple dominated the top of Crescent Island, it's magnificent golden roof less impressive in the moonlight. It was a holy place, built in honor of the last Avatar of Fire, Kitsu Roku. Had Zuko the time to consider it he might have wondered why Fire-Lord Sozin of all people had chosen to construct such an elaborate shrine to a former Avatar.

But he didn't, he was more focused on the  _current_  Avatar.

Zuko had elected to only bring Sgt Rin and Cpt Haki with him, leaving Lt Taro in command of the ship. He would have liked to bring more, as many infantrymen as he could manage to squeeze into the skiff, but the Shrine of Roku was a sacred place. Bringing too many soldiers would be disrespectful to the spirits and so Zuko had only brought his best swordsman and his best bender, after himself. Lt Bo had volunteered to go as well, but after a brief conversation, with Haki of all people, she had changed her mind.

The launch had gone smoothly and quietly, or at least as quietly as a boat that size could be anyway, and within the hour they were on Fire Crescent Island. After the climbing the seemingly countless stairs they were greeted at the door by the master shugenja of the temple.

"Prince Zuko? Thank the Sun you've arrived!" the old man gasped. "The Avatar is HERE! He's trying to break down the sanctuary door!"

"Where?"

The old man directed them up several more flights of steps, bidding them to hurry on ahead. He himself began climbing after them, moving with a glacial slowness.

"More stairs? Why couldn't they have built this shrine at the bottom of the mountain?" Haki grumbled.

Rin, still breathing at a normal rate, looked at him askance.

"Remember, I want them  _alive_ ," Zuko said quietly, his breathing also unlabored. He glanced at Haki. "NO incinerations."

"As you wish, sir."

As they reached the top of the stairs Zuko silently motioned them to a halt. He crept forward into the sanctuary antechamber, a large room full of ornately carved bronze pillars and obsidian tiles. There was an enormous bronze door dominating the far side of the room and he could see the Avatar, who had his back to Zuko, hiding behind one of the pillars. Five of the shugenja of fire stood in front of him, bent flames gushing into small holes in the door, causing it to slowly grind open. Zuko motioned for Rin and Haki to deal with the two unicorns who were hiding behind another pillar farther along the room.

Moving quietly, Zuko positioned himself behind the boy and then seized him in a choke hold, bending fire into a knife and placing it pointing at the Avatar's face.

"I have you now," Zuko growled and began to drag the struggling boy backward towards the stairs. As he did so the sanctuary door continued to grind open and Rin and Haki, along with the other fire shugenja, subdued the two Unicorns. Oddly one of the fire shugenja seemed to be on the Avatar's side, but he was quickly captured as well.

"Shut the door!" Zuko bellowed, dragging the Avatar towards the stairs, "and bring those two along, we are leaving."

"Please! I need to talk to Avatar Roku!" Aang said, fighting for breath as the fire shugenja began the process of resealing the door.

"And I need to go home!" Zuko snapped back, fury making his tone harsh.

Timing it just right, just as Zuko hit the first step down, the Avatar bent air at his feet propelling Zuko and himself down the stairs, receiving a nasty burn-cut along the scalp in the process. Zuko, however, had the wind knocked out of him as his back hit the steps and his dagger of fire vanished giving the boy just the opening he needed to wiggle free.

Quick as a moose-rabbit, the Avatar flew back up the stairs and, dodging past Rin's slashing blade by way of stepping on his head, flew through the closing sanctuary door.

Zuko roared wordless, arriving on the scene just in time to see the sanctuary door seal itself and flash a blinding blue. The two Unicorn and the traitorous fire shugenja had been tied up and were kneeling on the floor.

"HA!" Sokka cried triumphantly.

Zuko stalked over, mind ablaze with fury, and with a crunch he re-broke Sokka's nose for him.

"Leave him alone you coward!" Katara yelled.

Zuko ignored her. "Get that damned door OPEN!" he roared at the shugenja.

As they, now aided by Haki, furiously began bending at the door Zuko turned to the bound fire shugenja.

"Explain yourself," he said, glaring at the man. It sounded a lot better than demanding someone explain why they had trussed a holy man up like a seal-pig for market.

"We are the shugenja of fire! We serve the  _Avatar_ , not Fire-Lord Ozai! Perhaps my brothers have forgotten that but  _I_  have not!" the man shouted fervently.

"It's  _treason_  then," Zuko said flatly.

"Is it treason to oppose a madman in favor of the one who guides the world to balance?"

"You name?" Zuko said after a long pause, staring down at the man.

"Yogo Shyu."

Zuko turned away to look at the other shugenja. "The door?"

"Sealed, highness," one of the other shugenja said nervously, "the… the spirit of Roku will not permit our entry."

Zuko glanced at the bound shugenja then looked questioningly at the ones that were free. They understood his intent and turned their backs, approving it by their silence.

"Yogo Shyu," Zuko intoned, his blade of fire leaping into his hand as he made a slow solemn circle around the man, "I, Akodo Zuko, prince of the realm, find you guilty, by your own admission, of High Treason. You have dishonored yourself, your family name, and the Fire-Nation. I revoke your right of seppuku and sentence you to death." He raised the blade of fire over his head. "May your ancestors forgive you, for  _I_  will not." The blade came down and removed his head, instantly cauterizing the wound.

"You MONSTER!" Katara cried.

Zuko said nothing, but locked eyes with the girl trying to force her to look away with nothing but strength of will. She glared back at him, blue-grey eyes moist with unshed tears and a… fury behind them that surprised Zuko.

_Clap. Clap. Clap._

Their staring match was ended by the sound of slow sarcastic applause from the stairway. Commander Zhao stepped into the light of the room followed by a platoon of soldiers.

"Very nice speech  _highness_. I  _am_  curious, do you practice being pretentious in a mirror aboard your ship, or is it a natural gift?"

"It is a natural gift, honed by practicing in the mirror on  _your_  ship," Zuko shot back as he turned, placing himself between Zhao and the girl.

_Sometimes,_ he thought, _it really pays off having grown up with someone as viciously witty as Azula_

Zhao's face turned ugly. "Where is he?" he snarled.

One of the shugenja answered first. "He is within the sanctuary commander."

"Very well," Zhao said, turning back to Zuko. "Step aside,  _boy."_  His soldiers began to spread out to encircle Zuko.

"Or what,  _master?_ " Zuko said, investing the title with scorn. "You'll  _fight_  me? Here on holy ground?" Rin placed his hand on his sword on Zuko's left, fire formed in Haki's hand on his right.

"You just BEHEADED a man!" Sokka exclaimed through his bleeding nose.

"SHUT UP," both firebenders shouted at the same time, never taking their eyes from one another.

"If you will not step aside for a superior officer-"

At that moment the sanctuary doors flew open with a boom and out, shrouded in eerie fog, walked Avatar Roku.

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_Oh shit._

Zuko was not a coward. He would stand and fight any man, woman or army should honor or duty require it of him. He had been facing down opponents much larger, older and, ostensibly, more skilled than him almost his entire life.

_This_  was not any of those.

THIS was a great spirit, a  _kami_  of unimaginable power. THIS was a force of nature. The Sprit of Roku.

One thing Zuko had learned in his time with the navy was that nature was no respecter of persons or titles. Nature simply  _did not care_  about your honor, your courage, or how many battles you had won. Nature  _killed_. It was simple and beautiful in its own way, worthy of respect.

So, when  _this_  spirit's will exploded outwards in a wave of fire that knocked everyone off their feet AND caused the island's three volcanoes to erupt (including the one that was right underneath him) Zuko shouted for his men to head to the ship. He himself moved to grab the Shinjo siblings, but the blast of fire must have destroyed the ropes holding them because they were on their feet and running already.

"Damnit!" Zuko shouted over the exploding mountains and began running down the staircase after them.

Zhao, the fool, was trying to fight the spirit and his soldiers were being pummeled like rag dolls. The spirit of the former Avatar hadn't even moved from the doorway, fire simply obeyed him as though it was an extension of his thoughts, seeking and burning Zhao's men, their screams could barely be heard over the roar of the temple beginning to tear itself apart.

Halfway down the stairs Zuko found the ancient head shugenja, still slowly trying to make his way  _up._

"What is happ- ack!" he squawked as Zuko, not even breaking stride, hoisted him over his shoulder.

Zuko didn't waste any breath trying to explain.

They made it to their ship a few minutes ahead of the lava and the little old man watched in horror as his temple, his home, melted into a molten mess.

It was as thought the heavens themselves were conspiring to keep Zuko honorless and his mood sank into the darkest bowels of depression as he sailed to the rendezvous point.

With _out_  the Avatar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welcome persons to the end of the chapter. Give yourself a pat on the back, because I can't be there to do it for you.
> 
> I'd like to take a brief moment to thank all the folks that like and subscribe/follow/bookmark/etc. my stories. You know who you are, and your ability to click a check box or tap the little heart on your phone, while miniscule in personal effort for you, is none the less a truly awesome experience for me. So, thank you.
> 
> Rambly bits to follow. Almost entirely deviations from standard.
> 
> Shrine of Roku: I've change quite a bit about the appearance and background of this particular island temple. Some of which is merely hinted here in this chapter, stay tuned to find out the rest!
> 
> Time Dilation: As I mentioned on the series/author page, this whole work I'm doing suffers (or in my opinion benefits) from this. Instead of Aang somehow managing to fly from the earth-kingdom and be pursed by Zuko in a single day it's a long non-stop hectic flight over the course of days. More dramatic I think.
> 
> Zuko's status: I have to admit I wrote myself into a corner with this chapter, or more rightly BEFORE this chapter. I've mentioned it before but I had completely forgotten that Zuko was banished from the Fire-Nation at large. So, the whole "oh noes I can't go into the FN because I R banished" thing doesn't happen. Also, the idea that the FN navy just has a hull to hull line of ships around the FN at all times is just ludicrous. That's NOT HOW BLOCKADES WORK. So, we've got Zuko requesting them there, using the FN's advanced message system and naval power. I like it and I hope you do to.
> 
> The Death of Shyu: Sorry cannon avatar-verse, you don't get to help your nation's enemies, when said nation is full of fire breathing villains, and escape unscathed. Akodo!Zuko is definitely a more of a hands-on, immediate execution of justice kinda guy.
> 
> Old bowlegged shugenja master: Comedy Gold!
> 
> Thanks once again for using some of your finite time in this life on my writing! As always feel free to comment or pm. I'm always open to commentary and reader engagement. So long as you're not anonymous I'm happy to answer any questions you have.
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko goes shopping and learns about cultural appreciation
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 8 July 2018


	7. The White Lotus Tile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated W, for whiplash.
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from the S1E9 "The Waterbending Scroll"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

** EarlySpring, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai. **

"Is there a problem lieutenant?" Zuko asked calmly.

"No, sir."

"And yet you seem distracted. I don't believe I've ever been able to strike you so many times in a row before."

"You must be improving sir."

"Ash and bone Rin, do I need to  _order_  you to speak?"

Lt Rin, who had until only recently been  _Sgt_  Rin, looked at Zuko, his face working with suppressed emotion.

"Sir, I've been in the enlisted ranks for twenty-three years. I don't know anything about being an officer," he grumbled.

"What do you think you've been doing for the last twenty months?"

"My  _job_ , sir."

"Yes, and an excellent job as well. An  _officer's_ job. I fail to see why you are upset."

"It's just that… lieutenant Bo…"

"You  _can_  just call her by her first name now, you know."

"…Lieutenant Bo is the reason I have this promotion, isn't she?" Rin said angrily.

"What?" Zuko blinked. "What in the Sun's name would make you think that?"

"She… she didn't say anything about…" Rin waved his hands trying to find the right words, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

"About what?"

"About…" Rin now looked embarrassed.

"Oh." Zuko nodded in recollection. "I do recall the conversation. We were discussing your concerns about fraternization."

Rin froze.

"It made me think," Zuko continued, oblivious to the man's distress, "that, in the course of your duties, you were required to interact with my other officers a great deal, seeing as how I myself was busy with the overall command of the ship at had never replaced captain… what  _was_  his name again?"

"Captain Atsui, sir."

"Yes,  _that_  idiot. Anyway, I realized that  _you_  had effectively been my infantry commander the entire time and that, to my shame, I had not given you the recognition and authority you so obviously deserved." Zuko locked eyes with Rin. "If I had the power I would have made you a captain, it's no more than you deserve."

"So… Bo didn't ask you to promote me?"

"Why in the ash would she have done that?"

"No reason, sir," Rin said quickly, seeming… relieved for some reason.

 _Perhaps he was concerned that he had not won the appointment on his own merits?_  Zuko mused.  _But why under the Sun would he think that BO would have convinced me? Perhaps she…_

Zuko chain of thought was suddenly interrupted by a subtle shifting of the ship, the rising sun making their shadows arc around them. They were turning.

"I didn't order any course changes," Zuko said angrily, turning away from Rin to stalk towards the bridge. "What the ash is Taro playing at?"

When he arrived on the bridge he found the entire crew very still and very pointedly  _not_  looking at his uncle Iroh who stood smiling and humming slightly, his hand on the ship's wheel.

"Uncle, what  _precisely_  do you think you are doing?" Zuko said as calmly as he could manage.

"Hmmm? Oh! Nephew! You would not believe the tragedy that had befallen me!" Iroh exclaimed, seeming is  _far_  to good a mood for any "tragedy."

"Go on," Zuko said, narrowing his eye.

"My white lotus tile has gone missing." Iroh sighed, his display of sorrow so over the top that Zuko had to force himself to keep a straight face.

"Your… what?"

"Surely you jest nephew!? The white lotus tile is the very foundation of my personal Pai Sho strategy! To have it missing from my set… It is as though I were missing a piece of my very soul." He cast his eyes skyward as though beseeching the heavens to return it to him.

"So… I am to understand that you have  _suborned_  my officers and  _commandeered_  my ship in an effort to recover your missing Pai Sho piece?" Zuko's officers continued to avoid making eye contact with him.

"Not  _commandeered,_  just borrowed!" Iroh said brightly. "We will make for Tohin Wo, the nearby market port, and I will search the merchants there for a  _new_  white lotus piece! Then, finally, all will be right with the world!"

 _And why not?_  Zuko thought with a sigh.  _It's been almost a month since you've had a solid lead on the Avatar. Uncle probably just has a touch of cabin fever._

"Very well," he said aloud with a growl, fighting to keep his face stern as he addressed his crew. "As Akodo said 'he who does not honor his elders dishonors himself.' So it seems I must humor you, uncle. Lieutenant Yama. Plot us a route to this Tohin Wo. Taro, have Tsumara draw up a list of supplies she needs. It would appear that we are going  _shopping_."

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"Oh look! A Tsungi horn!" Lt Bo said interestedly.

Zuko had accompanied his uncle off the Devastator and into Tohin Wo for a total of twelve paces. Then, seeing the lawlessness of the place he had called Rin and Haki to come as well, as much to avoid trouble through an overt display of arms as it was to make sure that  _he_  didn't throttle his uncle for dragging his ship into this fetid place. Lt Bo had come running up soon after, asking to accompany them as she had a list of parts and equipment she thought would be useful. For some reason, Rin looked sheepish and Haki smirked at her.

Now the five of them strolled (there really wasn't a better word for it that "strolled") through the market. Iroh, now aided and abetted by Lt Bo, flitted from one stall to another, haggling fiercely for an assortment of…  _things_.

"Not eight years ago this was the man that taught me that  _commerce_  was a vulgarity a samurai should never engage in," Zuko muttered to Haki. The two of them watched the street, while Rin stuck close to Iroh and Bo, as much to look menacing as to hold their growing stack of purchases.

Haki chuckled. "My grandfather was the same way after he retired. He would haggle with a  _fish_  merchant over the cost of a few  _zeni._  Imagine, the husband of Lord Matsu, arguing with fishwives." He guffawed.

"And what do you imagine is  _Bo's_  excuse?" Zuko said, without malice.

"She's a girl. Women love dragging their boyfr-" Haki cut off with a cough- "Women just love shopping. I know  _my_  wife does."

"And what are you planning to do with a Tsungi horn?" Zuko asked as Iroh exited the shop and handed the massive brass instrument off to Haki.

"We can have a music night on the ship! Should be great for morale," Iroh said with a grin. "Bo here plays the biwa!" He glanced at Rin, who was now only barely visible under their stack of purchases. " _You_  look like a shakuhachi man," he said appraisingly.

"Music night?" Zuko said, bewildered.

"Oh, yes sir," Bo said happily. "We used to do it at the academy!" She turned to Iroh. "What sort of instrument should the commander play?"

"My nephew happens to be a very gifted taiko drummer," Iroh said proudly.

Bo looked impressed.

"It's good for upper body strength and hand-eye coordination," Zuko said dismissively. "But I fail to see how ANY of this helps you with you missing Pai Sho piece uncle."

"Alas," Iroh slumped again into a ridiculous pantomime of despair. "Not a single shop I have been to yet has carried the white lotus tile." He perked up. "We will just have to keep looking!"

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"Sir! I think this is a  _pirate_  ship!" Lt Bo whispered worriedly.

"I believe they prefer to be called the Wokou, lieutenant," Zuko said dryly.

 _Of COURSE they're flaming pirates! Just LOOK at them!_  Zuko though.  _That one even has an IGUANA-PARROT on his shoulder for our ancestor's sake!_

Either his uncle hadn't noticed, or simply didn't care, as he rummaged through what the barker outside the ship had called "exotic curios."

_Flaming pirates probably can't even SPELL curio._

Zuko supposed he  _could_  just execute the lot of them, but they weren't  _currently_  engaged in piracy. He had no evidence other than the evidence of his eye to go on. It could be possible that a band of lice-infested bushi had taken to trading in "exotic curios" that they had legally acquired.

It  _could_ be possible.

In much the same way that it  _could_  be possible that Cpt Haki might secretly be a platypus-bear in a man costume.

As his uncle browsed, Zuko's remaining ear perked up at the muted conversation of two of the "curio dealers."

"…the Water-Tribe girl. She and her little bald friend must be hiding somewhere outside of town."

Zuko was there in an instant, grabbing the man who had spoken, a shifty looking fellow with a long mustache, by the collar and slamming him against the wall of the ship, knocking a few of the "curios" to the ground.

"Water-Tribe girl?" he growled, enunciating each word clearly.

"GHHg. Yes, Lord! She stole a…"

"Is there a problem here?" came a voice from behind Zuko.

He dropped the little man and turned to find the large man with the iguana-parrot glaring at him.

"A Water-Tribe pair and a little bald boy. Were they here?"

"What's it to you?"

Zuko grinned as horribly as he could manage. "It seems they have  _stolen_  something from you. What sort of samurai would I be if I did not investigate?" he said with false good humor, putting his hand on the scabbard of his katana.

The pirate captain glared down at the man who had spoken, who looked back wincing sheepishly.

"Yes, Mr Samurai, they stole from us," the captain said, his tone as disrespectful as he could manage.

"Stole what?"

"A  _curio_."

"Spell it."

The pirate blinked. "What?"

"Spell 'curio' for me."

The pirate glared at Zuko, a faint touch of embarrassment in his face.

_Thought so._

"I will be blunt with you captain," Zuko said, a manic glint in his eye, "I have no interest in you, your 'curios' or  _how_  you acquired them. What interests me is these three and  _what_  it was that they stole."

"It was a waterbending scroll," the pirate captain said after a moment of hesitation.

_It WAS them!_

Zuko grinned a feral grin. "I think we can come to an understanding captain."

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"Do you think this…  _wise_  nephew?"

The two of them, Iroh and Zuko, stood at the bow of the pirate ship which was making its way slowly down river, away from the harbor.

"Absolutely not," Zuko replied. "You should be back on the ship. We are unlikely to find you Pai Sho piece out here."

"You know what I mean. They're  _pirates_."

 _Oh, so NOW you notice,_  Zuko thought.

"Yes, they ARE pirates," he said aloud. "Pirates who know the area, are excellent man hunters and who have a very pressing reason to find my prey." The captain had revealed that the scroll was worth over two hundred koku, enough to buy a decent home with land or, more likely, another boat.

"They are  _slavers_ , Zuko. They have no honor and cannot be trusted," Iroh said warningly.

"Of course not. That is why I am not alone," Zuko said, gesturing to the skiff riding low in the water alongside the pirate vessel. It was packed with a platoon of infantry, led by Lt Rin.

"Just be cautious nephew."

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

The wind-powered pirate ship and the Fire-Nation skiff sailed silently down the river.

"Curio. C-u-r-i-o, Curio," Zuko said quietly.

"C-u… I fail to see how this is important," the pirate captain snarled, also quietly.

"How is  _spelling_  not impor-"

"OW! Frost TAKE you! Stupid scroll!" A loud voice echoed ahead of them. A loud  _woman's_ voice.

_I have you now._

Zuko grinned.

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

The Shinjo girl was so focused on the scroll that Zuko was sure he could have just walked up and thrown her over his shoulder without her noticing. As it was, the pirates who had lept off the boat and swam silently around behind her made first contact. She gasped, and with a sweeping motion she bent water out of the river and threw them back with it.

 _Odd, all the reports said she wasn't very good at bending,_ Zuko thought in amusement.  _That must be an excellent scroll._

She turned and ran away as more pirates climbed from the water, almost falling down when she blindly ran into Zuko. He grabbed her by the forearms, stopping her from falling over, and leaned close.

"Don't worry," he said still grinning savagely, " _I'll_  save you from the pirates."

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

He'd tied the girl to a tree.

It was a traditional maneuver for these sorts of situations. You tied the  _bait_  to a tree and waited, eventually your prey would show itself. She certainly shouted enough to attract Zuko's quarry and for some reason he couldn't help but feel…  _amused_  by the whole situation.

"Go find the other two," he ordered the pirates after the girl stopped shouting long enough for him to be heard.

"That  _wasn't_ the deal," the captain snarled.

"The _deal_  was that you find me the fugitives I'm looking for and you get to keep the scroll. This-" he pointed at Katara- "is a fugi _tive_. Singular."

"I swear, if you try to double-cross us…"

"Find me the other two… and you can keep the girl," Zuko said flatly. "Must be worth quite a bit, being a pretty waterbender?"

_Pretty!? What the ash am I saying?_

The pirate captain leered greedily and nodded in agreement. The pirates disappeared into the woods.

After they left Lt Bo fired up immediately. "Sir? You can't seriously be-"

Zuko held up a finger to silence her.

 _What is she even doing here? I asked for Rin and Haki._  He glared at those two. Haki just shrugged. Rin looked… sheepish again?

 _I will never understand other people,_  Zuko thought, shaking his head.

"Tell me where they are," he said quietly, turning and fixing Katara with his yellow eye. "If  _I_  find them first I won't have to hand you over to them."

"Go jump in the river! You frostbitten icehole," she shouted at him, furious.

"Temper, temper," he said, once again becoming suddenly amused by her fury. "I had always been told that waterbenders were calm and collected, unfazed by anything. It seems I was taught wrong." He smirked at Iroh.

"You were taught wrong about a lot of things!" she shouted back.

"Well, I was also taught that  _stealing_  was wrong. Perhaps someone neglected to mention that to you?"

She had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"They're  _pirates,_ " she said sullenly.

"Yes, I KNOW they're PIRATES! Why does everyone think they need to tell me this?" Zuko said with mock irritation to the group at large.

He grew serious, moving his face close to Katara's. "Help me find him and I swear, on my honor, you and your brother will not be harmed. I will see you rewarded and taken back home. Or to the north pole if you wish. I'm sure you can find a teacher there."

Her eyes grew wide in surprise then narrowed again, her cheeks red with anger. She turned her head away.

"I'll even sweeten the deal," he continued even more quietly, his face still close to hers. "Tell me where he is and you can have  _this._ " He pulled the necklace he'd recovered from the earthbender prison out of his armor and dangled it at eye level.

"My mother's necklace!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up like the sun, "where did you find it?" She suddenly remembered her situation and resumed scowling.

"So, it  _is_  yours? Well, I didn't  _steal_ it if that's what you are asking." He slowly circled around behind her, holding the necklace out in front of her neck as if to put it on her. "Tell me where he is and you can have-"

She suddenly shrieked, eyes widening as she tried to squirm away from the necklace, struggling with her bonds furiously. "Get away from me!"

Zuko blinked, mystified, but did not move. "I thought this was yours?" he said stupidly.

"Uh, sir?" Lt Bo said timidly, raising her hand. "That's a Water-Tribe  _betrothal_ necklace, sir. Putting something like that around a girl's neck is… uh-" she coughed nervously- "tantamount to proposing."

Zuko felt heat creep into the working side of his face.

"That's- What- I didn't…" he sputtered, as he jerked the necklace away and stalked around in front of her, his blush intensifying. "How could you think- I- I didn't mean…"

Katara glared at him. Her eyes narrowed, blue-grey eyes the color of a merciless storm at sea.

"I'll kill you," she snarled, all traces of calm gone.

She snarled  _beautifully._

 _Wait… WHAT!? Beautifully? She's an enemy! A damned waterbender! She just said she'd KILL you!_  Zuko's voice cried out in his head.

 _But she said it so BEAUTIFULLY, like a terrifying predator stalking the high plains!_  Sighed another voice, still his own, but in a way he'd never heard before.

He heart began to do somersaults while his face attempted to firebend all on its own.

"Somebody else try and talk to her!" He said forcing a sneer and turning his back.

Cpt Haki started forward, cracking his knuckles, but was immediately cut off by Lt Bo who shot him a nasty look.

 _Ancestors preserve me, I hope nobody saw me blush like that,_  Zuko thought worriedly, staring out at the moonlit river.  _What in the Sun's name was THAT?_

A few minutes later loud laughter cut through his thoughts as the pirate band crashed through the bushes carrying two bound forms. He glanced back at Katara who was still glaring daggers at him, a look that was now mirrored by Lt Bo.

 _Oh great, looks like Bo has made a new friend,_  he thought sarcastically.

 _Are you actually going to allow her to be enslaved?_  The newest version of Zuko's inner thoughts whispered.

His original stratagem had been to give her, or her brother, over to the pirates, wait a day, then arrest the entire crew for human trafficking, a crime which carried the death sentence in Fire-Nation territory. It was a strategy, while convoluted, would allow him to both keep his word and honorably dispatch a group of criminals. Now though… who knew what they might…  _do_  to her in the interim? The pirate captain's greedy leer flashed through his mind like a thunderbolt.

 _They CANNOT have her,_ he thought and he moved between them.

"Well, we've got your fugi _tives_ , plural this time. Hand over the girl and the scroll and we'll part ways as friends," the pirate captain said, his grin clearly explaining that "friend" in this instance just meant that they wouldn't be killing each other… yet.

"Wow. You guys are just going to hand over the  _Avatar_  for some silly dance moves and my sister? That's pretty stupid," Sokka said loudly.

 _What in the flame is he doing?_ Zuko thought furiously.

"What in the frost are you  _doing,_  Sokka?!" Katara said angrily.

"I'm just saying, it's bad business sense. Why trade the Avatar, who the Fire-Lord would probably pay  _thousands_  of koku for, for my sister, who's not even a good cook, and… what did you say that scroll was worth?" Sokka said, smiling winningly.

"Did you just insult my COOKING!?" Katara shouted and began struggling at her bonds again.

The pirates began to ready their weapons.

_THAT'S what he's doing, damn him._

"We had a deal captain," Zuko said icily, loosening his katana in his belt with his left hand.

"Deal's  _off_  Mr Samurai," the pirate said, drawing his cutlass.

_Thank you good spirits. Now I don't have to break MY word._

"Kill them," Zuko said loudly, his teeth bared in a horrible grin, "the ugly ones FIRST!"

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

Zuko loved battle.

He'd discovered this facet of himself in truth in the colonies, killing time by fighting bandits and Earth-Kingdom scouting companies as he tried to forget, what he had then thought, was the pointless futile task of hunting the Avatar.

Large-scale strategy was useful and important, small unit tactics and leadership were the same. Both were important skills the execution of which could bring great honor, but  _battle_  was exhilarating. A flowing chaotic mess without any need for restraint, or fear, or any complexities of any kind. There was no need to think, no need for doubt, no need to wonder if the choices you made were the right ones. You had your sword, your allies, and your enemies. Simple, clean,  _honest._  In battle, he wasn't the failure, the banished prince, the half-blind maimed monstrosity. In battle, he was what he was  _made_  to be, a destroyer of men.

"AKODO!" Zuko roared, charging headlong into the thick of the pirates, his blade of fire bursting from his fist. He seared through one, upward from hip to shoulder, cutting his polearm in half. Another got the return stroke as he swung the blade all the way around his head and through the front half of their face.

Then one of the pirates threw a smoke bomb and things really got chaotic as the Fire-Nation ji-samurai slammed into the pirate formation like a hammer.

Pirate fought soldier, trying to use the concealment of the smoke clouds to make up for their lack of armor. Through the battle haze Zuko saw his men using the Fire-Nation's admirable teamwork to subdue the individually talented pirates with their exotic weaponry. Haki dueled a pair of chain and kama wielders, roaring in the near berserker fury that was the trademark of the Matsu family. Rin and Bo stood back to back her bending covering him as he cut his way through anyone stupid enough to come into range of his lightning fast strikes. Zuko even caught a glimpse of the Avatar's pet lemur fighting an aerial battle with the pirate captain's iguana-parrot.

Then Zuko saw the Avatar.

The boy had slipped out of the bonds the pirates had put him in somehow and had rejoined both of the Shinjos, but Zuko only managed to catch glimpses of him through the smoke. Every time he started towards the boy another pirate appeared in his path. Though it was only the work of a dozen heartbeats to cut them down, those bare seconds were all it took for his true quarry to disappear again.

Eventually, the smoke cleared revealing the riverbank now full of blood, fire scars, and corpses. There were far more dead pirates than soldiers, but still more soldiers than Zuko would have liked.

What he liked even less was the sight of the pirates' vessel underway, Shinjo Sokka at the wheel.

He roared in fury and took off after them on foot, catching up with them quickly. It appeared that they weren't sure how to operate the ship to its peak efficiency and further complicated their situation by bending a huge gout of red flame, igniting the entire port side of the boat and the rigging.

 _The sails will catch and they will be forced to abandon ship. Then I can just swim out there and grab…_ Stunningly, in that moment, he wasn't sure which of them he would try to save first, the Avatar or the girl.

In his confusion he entirely missed the giant wave, sprung from nothing in the placid river to become a great tsunami, that hit the side of the boat, quenching his flames. Somehow the boat remained undisturbed by the wave which then rebounded off of it and rushed towards HIM.

That, he  _did_  notice.

 _Ash and bone, that really WAS an excellent scroll,_  he thought as the wave hit him like the hammer of an angry kami, knocking him unconscious.

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

Zuko awoke, lying face down in the dirt.

His topknot had come unraveled, he had river sand in places he had not known he  _had_ , and worst of all the Avatar had escaped.  _Again_.

He was  _less_ than pleased.

The surviving pirates had been captured and bound back where the battle had taken place. A few of them had tried to make off with Zuko's skiff during the confusion of battle, but the soldiers he'd left to guard it were more than enough to take care of them. Zuko shook his head.

_What sort of idiot leaves his… leaves his ANYTHING unguarded when there are pirates around?_

He found the pirate captain, still alive, fuming silently alongside his men. As Zuko stalked towards the man seemed to grow angrier and angrier. The fool had had him, HAD HIM, and he let him escape.

_Greedy, stupid, slaving pile of…  
_

Suddenly the image of the pirate leering at Katara, and what he probably would have done to her, flashed through his mind in a searing wave and the RAGE had him. Zuko grabbed the pirate by the collar and dragged him to the river.

"Spell curio," Zuko said, his voice seeming totally calm.

"What?"

"SPELL IT!" Zuko snarled, face contorting violently.

"C… u…" the pirate began, then stopped, glaring at him.

"Spelling is important," Zuko said sadly, shaking his head.

Then he lit the pirate's head on fire.

It was only a few seconds, enough for second-degree burns, then Zuko plunged him into the icy river.

He emerged  _screaming_.

"Spell CURIO!" Zuko yelled over top of him, his hands shaking with rage.

The pirate's eyes were rolling in his head with pain and fear.

"No?" Zuko said with a brittle laugh and reignited him, waiting a few seconds again before dunking him.

"Sp-heh-heh-ell curio?" Zuko asked, beginning to laugh madly.

The wreck of a man tried to form the letters, he really did, but he didn't know them all.

"I guess spelling IS important you greedy, slaving, RAPIST, BASTARD!"

He ignited again.

The pirate was dead by the fourth ignition, head practically a skull, and Zuko roared in rage and threw the corpse into the river. He spun around to the prisoners and found them staring in terror, several soiled themselves on the spot. His soldiers did look particularly well either, one or two looked like they might have been sick.

 _They're WEAK,_  a voice like his father's hissed.  _Burn them. Burn them ALL._  And he started forward, mad grin contorting his face, all sanity vanished from his mind.

"Nephew! You're not going to believe it!"

Zuko blinked, who was that talking to him?

"Look here Zuko!"

It was his uncle. He remembered having one of those. He looked.

"It's my white lotus tile! It was here, in my sleeve, the  _whole time!"_ Iroh finished.

"Oh… That's… Good, uncle."

Was it good? It seemed like it…

"Yes, it is! That means we can  _go back to the ship now!_ " his uncle seemed more insistent than usual, shouting as though he were a long way away.

"Yes… the ship. I… have a ship, don't I?" Zuko said furrowing his brow.

"Yes nephew, and your bed is there." Iroh seemed a bit sad now.

"Oh. Yes. My bed. I am… pretty tired. It's been a long day, hasn't it?" Had it? He couldn't seem to remember.

Iroh began to gently lead him back to the skiff. "Yes nephew, it has been a long day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Greetings and welcome to the end of the chapter! Was it good? I think so. But I leave objective questions of quality to you the wonderful reader. Always remember to feel free to comment/pm/send a courier pigeon.
> 
> First off I'd like to apologize. The last-minute edit of this particular chapter was done in the very wee hours of the morning. Insomnia is a bad motha. That being said, grammar and punctuation might only be at 95% of their normal awesomeness. I just wanted to get this out there so that I wouldn't have to drag myself out of bed after no sleep. Are you complaining? No you are probably asleep too, unless you're an early rising European.
> 
> And NOW... RAMBLES!
> 
> Zutara: this is IT, the beginning of the romantic subplot that many (hopefully) of you have been waiting for. Our boy Zuko has well and done caught feelings. And it only took me (checks stats page quickly) 67,000 words to get to it. Slow burn? Or SLOWEST burn? YOU DECIDE! Things will progress from here. Not quickly but yes they will progress. I regret nothing.
> 
> DEVIATIONS FROM STANDARD(other than Zutara)
> 
> Katara's necklace: There are so, so many issues plot-wise with Katara's necklace. Mostly I feel this is brought on by poor planning on the part of the show's writers. Having Pakku recognize it at the end just screams unspoken ret-con to me. Allow me to explain. So, ostensibly, we have a young Kanna who is (or is not) in love with Pakku. Yet for reasons that are never really explained, she flees from the North. We can make a variety of suppositions and guesses as to why, she doesn't care for the sexism, or pakku, or any of the other myriad facets of the NWT. So she leaves. She doesn't even tell her friend Yagoda why. She decides to take the betrothal necklace with her, passing it off to her daughter(or daughter in law) Kya. How does THAT make sense? If it was the symbol of your status as a second-class citizen, or a token from the man you didn't (or did) love, why would you give it to your daughter? Give it to your daughter so long ago that Katara thinks of it as her mother's necklace? If it was a memento of freedom, or stand against tyranny, or what have you, you think that Katara would have been told that story. Then she would also know that it was a betrothal necklace.
> 
> See? All kinds of no sense making.
> 
> SO I have decided to simplify things here. Firstly Kanna is Kya's mother, her husband shall be identified in a later chapter. Second, Katara knows damn well what the necklace is. I have made it a universal custom in the water-tribes. We've got engagement rings, they've got betrothal necklaces. I continue to regret nothing.
> 
> The Madness: I promise, next chapter, we're going to have some dialog about Zuko's tenuous grip on sanity. Promise. Is it a recurring thing, and plot-relevant? Yes it is.
> 
> Thanks again for reading my words. You are the reason for the season.
> 
> Damn I'm tired.
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko has emotions! And IROH does a bit of shouting!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 15 July 2018


	8. The Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the following is rated SI, for suicidal ideations.
> 
> It corresponds, chronologically, with the events of S1E12 "The Storm"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised

 

 

**Late Spring, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"…..of conflicting reports. It should be noted, however, that the area was marked as 'red' for a high likelihood of bandit activity by high command. Either way, we have very little in the way of evidence that the target was there at all." The officer giving the briefing, Lt Jee, concluded his statement with a scowl and then sat back down.

"So, in summation, a village was flooded, but they were  _warned_ of the flooding in advance by a young man in Unicorn clothes?" Lt Taro asked, mostly for Zuko's benefit.

Zuko couldn't seem to make himself care.

He had grown almost listless since the battle with the pirates. Since he'd lost the Avatar again. Since he'd had a  _conversation_  with his uncle. A sense of helplessness had descended upon him like a black fog.

And THIS was not helping.

_Why are they wasting my time with this?_  he wondered.  _Flooding a village, even if it WAS one of ours, is entirely out of character for that little bastard._

"I hope you found my brief  _satisfactory_  highness?" Lt Jee remarked coldly.

The room froze.

The crew had been walking on eggshells since the incident at Tohin Wo. Conversations were kept to a bare minimum or whispered instead of spoken in a normal tone of voice. Lt Jee had only come onboard the Devastator at her last port of call and had seemed oblivious to his coworker's caution and his commander's bad mood.

Zuko turned his head to face the man, fixing him with his one baleful eye.

_Calm. Calm professional courtesy. That's the best path, the SAFE path._

"I found your report to be completely…  _asinine,_ " Zuko finished with a snarl.

_Or not._

"I would greatly appreciate it if you did not waste my time with this nonsense, lieutenant! The Avatar floods a village? Only to send one of his minions to warn them first?" Zuko snorted. "Did you even  _read_ the mission brief? The character assessment? And what's this nonsense about-" he rifled through the papers in front of him and began to read one aloud- "The Avatar was spotted traveling on foot through a series of canyons known to locals as 'The Great Divide'?" he slammed the papers back down and resumed glaring at Jee. "The Avatar can FLY, lieutenant! Why, by all our ancestors, would he WALK across the divide?! 'Taming wild beasts as he went'," he finished with an eye-roll.

Lt Jee glared furiously, face heating.

"Perhaps, instead of bringing me these farcical tales, you could focus your efforts on where the Avatar is  _now_? Or perhaps, at the very least, speculate where he is most likely to go?!"

"The  _North Pole_ sir," Jee said through gritted teeth.

"Congratulations! You are now caught up to the rest of the table!" Zuko roared, now on his feet. "How remarkable are your skills as an intelligence officer! Remarkable that you were able to deduce that  _this_  Avatar, like every  _other_  Avatar throughout the course of history, would follow the same cycle of learning and seek a waterbending teacher! Perhaps YOU WOULD CARE TO-"

Iroh's hand came down gently on Zuko's shoulder and his voice fell away. He took a steadying breath, his eye now closed.

"Meeting is adjourned," he said simply and walked out.

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

A dozen candles pulsed from orange to blood red as Zuko sat in a meditation pose at a makeshift shrine in his quarters.

Inhale. Orange, tiny,  _normal_.

Exhale. Red, large,  _malignant._

_What is wrong with me?_  Zuko thought, unable, as always, to empty his mind while meditating.

_You know what's wrong,_  hissed his father's voice.  _You are a FAILURE!_

Even in the privacy of his own mind, Zuko couldn't deny it.

He had realized recently that all his life he'd never  _really_  failed at something. Certainly, there were things that he had been unable to do at first, but that was simply a matter of practice. It was a feeling he'd always had, that  _nothing_ was outside his reach. Hard work, dedication, and an unwavering resolve had always enabled him to  _eventually_  achieve his goals. He could see the path, he accepted the distance and would run the route to its completion, no matter the effort and personal sacrifice it took.

He  _never_  gave up.

…But he couldn't see himself capturing the Avatar.

There was no path, no guideposts, no map. There wasn't even the sense that he was getting closer to victory. Every encounter with the Avatar,  _every single one_ , had ended in defeat; in shame and dishonor. Almost as though his skills were diminishing as those of the Avatar and his companions increased exponentially. He just couldn't stand it, and now along with everything else in his life…

_I just wish this was over._

_Then END IT, coward!_

He couldn't. He'd thought of it a dozen times during the last few weeks; of opening his belly or tying a stone to his leg and throwing it off the ship or taking the true coward's path and drinking one of the poisons his men had found in the wrecked pirate ship. It would have been quicker than this slow agonizing parade of humiliation. And safer for his crew.

But he wouldn't do it.  _Couldn't_  do it, not while there was a chance of victory. Of  _redemption._

He'd been close, so very very close, but he didn't  _understand_  the Avatar. Everything he knew, everything he had been taught, told him that the Avatar was  _weak._  A soft little boy, more concerned with wandering the colonies and playing with animals than with his duty, his  _honor._  His only protectors a pair of untrained barbarians who hadn't even completed gempukku. Yet they managed to survive and, in Zuko's estimation, improve their skills with each passing encounter. With a few words, Shinjo Sokka had turned a sure defeat into an unbelievable victory, and his sister…

_Probably best not to think about… that._

As if he had had a choice in the matter, those blue-grey eyes  _haunted_ him.

That he might have given her over, allowed her to be  _defiled_ , made bile rise in the back of his throat and a cold sweat break out on his forehead. That he had almost debased himself by engaging in slaving, however tangentially, in his pursuit of the Avatar was unsettling. How far was he prepared to go? To what depths would he have to sink to redeem himself? How would he ever be able to recover his honor if he had to discard it completely to capture the Avatar? It was only through the providence of the spirits, the honorless behavior of the pirates, and Sokka's surprising quick wits that he had escaped a monumental dishonor. And yet in spite of that…

_She was never afraid._

She had been tied to a tree, threatened with probable rape, and taunted with a family heirloom and yet she had stared into his mangled face and told him that she would  _kill_  him.

And for a heartbeat, he'd believed her.

She simply  _wasn't_  afraid of him; and, recalling back to their first meeting, he wasn't sure that she ever had been.

He had torn down the walls of her village, humiliated the only warrior there, and done his level best to intimidate her, all while she could barely bend at all.

She hadn't even blinked.

He'd captured her, beheaded a man not two feet from her and all she did was stare him down again.

There was a… conviction there; a depth of belief that shocked Zuko to his very core. He could see it reflected in those terrible eyes of hers and backed up by a… fury not unlike his own.

It was beautiful.

To his horror, he had begun to dream of her, dreams where they were quite alone when he had tied her to that tree and when she said she'd kill him she said it with a throaty purr that seemed to make his blood boil.

No woman had ever spoken to him like that, no woman would EVER speak to him like that. Not banished and honorless and broken and scarred as he was. He knew that, it was the truth. His dishonor marked him everywhere he went and no one could so much as  _look_  at him without flinching. No one! Not his officers, not his soldiers, not even his uncle. Much as they tried to hide it, their eyes always darted to his scar and the barest hint of disgust or pity flared there. Sometimes it seemed that that was all they saw.

_She doesn't though._

Inhale. Orange, tiny,  _normal_.

_It doesn't matter. We're enemies. That's… that's all we are. All we can be. Just enemies._

Exhale. Red, larger,  _malevolent._

_But what if she… what if she's the same? Maybe she… understands?_

Inhale. Orange,  _normal_.

_NO. She couldn't be. She just… she can see what I am._

Exhale. Red,  _furious._

_What you ARE?_

Inhale. N _ormal_.

_Yes. I'm a monster… and a madman._

Exhale.  _Monstrous._

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

"You have been meditating?" Iroh said, pacing back and forth in Zuko cabin later that evening. There was no trace of the laughing, sometimes doddering, old man he presented to people in his face or voice as he strode back and forth in front of Zuko.

"Yes, uncle."

"When you fall asleep you have achieved a state of calm?"

"Yes, uncle."

"And yet you persist in this sullen, childish behavior," he snapped.

"Yes, uncle."

"Do NOT be smart with me boy! This is dangerous, impossibly dangerous, and you treat it as though it were a rain shower! As though if you wait long enough it will go away. It will NOT go away I assure you!"

"Yes, uncle."

"I had never thought to see you surrender so easily! You are stronger than this, have better  _control_  than this! What happened to the boy who swore to fight on even if the Sun fell from the sky?"

"I was just that uncle. A  _boy._ "

"Well, you are not a child any longer Zuko. You are a man! You have a responsibility to-"

"To my men. Much like you had to  _yours_  at Ba Sing Se!" Zuko snapped rising to his feet and looming over his uncle. "And what was your  _solution,_  uncle? You  _ran_."

Iroh paled, all the anger seeming to drain out of him. "The situation was entirely different Zuko. I did not resign my command because of… of…"

"Go on! Say it!"

"… Our condition."

"Our ' _CONDITION'?_! Is  _that_ the best word you can come up with for murderous psychotic breaks?!"

"What would you prefer?"

"Or I don't know, perhaps we should simply admit that we are INSANE? Mentally unbalanced? Psychotic? Deranged? Unhinged? Two arrows short of a full quiver?" Zuko closed his eyes as though suddenly in pain. "You, and I and FATHER and GRANDFATHER! The whole LINE? All of us? Even… even Akodo?" Zuko said the last with an almost pleading tone, as though wishing his uncle would correct him. The idea that Akodo, the still venerated founder of the Fire-Nation, the Lord of  _Honor_ , might have also been a murderously insane psychopath was practically blasphemy.

"Zuko… sometimes in life, the  _idea_  of a person is greater than the truth of a-"

"So, he was then? That's the truth? How can we, how can any of us, have a right to rule when we are…  _broken_  like this?"

"We are not broken Zuko," Iroh said quietly. "But it is because of our condition that we must always be mindful,  _always_ careful, always  _in control._  What better qualities could one ask for in a leader?"

"But we FAIL! And out people suffer for it!" Zuko had almost set himself on his own men.  _His_  soldiers!

"To fail is the nature of humans, nephew. We are  _not_ the Kami, not perfect. It is the samurai who understands his failings, and has humility in his heart, that leads with both honor and compassion."

"Compassion?! Uncle if I had any true  _compassion_  I would have opened my stomach the very NIGHT we came back from Tohin Wo!" Better that he die than dishonor himself by massacring his own soldiers.

"You… you don't mean that Zuko!"

"I do. I'm… I'm too weak to be an Akodo." With that Zuko sank back into his chair and placed his head in his hands. "I should have just- father should have just killed me."

"Zuko, you must listen to me," Iroh said moving quickly to Zuko's side kneeling in front of him. "You are not weak. You stand and fight more bravely than any samurai I have had the privilege to know. Though the road grows ever longer, and the path grows dark, you must not give in to despair. In the darkest times, only hope can light your way."

"Hope? What hope is there for  _me_ , uncle?"

"Only you can truly give yourself hope Zuko. That is the meaning of inner strength."

Zuko sighed bitterly and raised his eye to his uncle. "Why was I not told? Why was I, a volcano about to erupt, allowed out of Otosan Uchi without this knowledge?"

"You were too young."

"Too  _young_? Uncle, I was an adult, I was-"

"It has never appeared before the age of thirty."

Zuko blinked. "But…"

"My first and only break was when I was forty-eight at the walls of Ba Sing Se," Iroh said shaking his head bitterly. "It is brought on by stress and emotional turmoil Zuko, but it is always,  _was_ always, the curse of the adult body. Traditionally it is revealed after an Akodo takes a spouse so that the partner can understand the warning signs and how to quell them."

"Warning signs?"

"Erratic eye movement, a trembling in the limbs, severe facial spasms that usually force the face into a snarl or grin. And of course… the laughter."

"Laughter?"

"In case it has escaped your notice Zuko, on the whole we are not a cheerful people. Strong emotional outbursts, like laughter, can be a warning sign. Our family's laughter is legendary, particularly for the violence that follows after. You now understand why." Iroh exhaled in a puff as he rose back to his feet. "You are an Akodo and a prince, nephew. And I know you are strong enough for this burden, though I wish you did not have to be."

"But… I…"

"And if it becomes clear that you are  _not_ ," Iroh continued, a measure of steel creeping into his voice, "rest assured you will not have to end your life. I will do it for you."

Relief flooded Zuko as he realized that his uncle would never allow him to dishonor himself or their family name by wreaking havoc on his own soldiers. "Thank you, uncle."

"I do not think it will become necessary however. I myself could barely even muster the will to leave my tent in the aftermath. You…"

"Dug graves," Zuko said, remembering Matomo, "and yelled at Ping." Another wave of guilt crashed through him.

"You were strong. I wasn't even certain that it  _was_  the madness then. You just seemed upset… and tired."

"I was. I am. I just can't-"

"Nobody seeks out a burden Zuko, it instead finds you. This is the way of things, the will of the heavens. To overcome the obstacles that this life gives us brings us honor and contentment. One day you will look back on all of this, see the road you have traveled, and you will be so proud. As proud as I am of you now."

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Zuko stood at the bow of the ship, eye locked on the horizon. There were storm clouds boiling in the distance there which, in the absence of orders to the contrary, Taro and Yama had piloted the ship around.

It was a pity. He always enjoyed a good storm.

Imminent danger always focused him and while the dangers inherent to a stormy sea could be harmful to his ship and crew it had an astoundingly positive effect on morale. People came together in times of trouble; it was, in fact, one of the founding principles of fire Nation military strategy. Unified effort in the face of a common enemy.

Zuko focused on that. Simple unified effort in the face of the enemy.

_It changes nothing,_ he concluded.  _That I am prone to bouts of madness does not change my duty or my methodology. I must be in control. I must fulfill my duty. Nothing has changed._

_And the girl?_ another part of him said quietly.

His mangled brow furrowed.

_I… cannot afford to be distracted. She stands between me and the execution of my duty. It changes nothing. Just because she… she…_

_Is the fiercest, loveliest thing I have ever seen._

He sighed.

_It changes NOTHING. This is not some- some- ridiculous storybook romance. A fact for which I suppose we must both be grateful._

Generally speaking, a Fire-Nation romance story ended with one of the lovers dead by the other's hand after they had been brought into conflict by contradictory loyalties or family troubles. Bonus points were awarded if they managed to kill one another at the same time. The Fire-Nation held duty and discipline to be far more important than simple romantic love and it was a rare, and usually poorly selling, novel that defied that expectation.

"Priority hawk just landed…  _sir._ " The pause was blatant and executed with malice aforethought and Zuko turned to lock eyes with Lt Jee. They stared at one another for a moment Zuko's yellow boring into Jee's dark pair.

"Noted,  _lieutenant_ ," Zuko rasped, inflecting Jee's rank with disdain. After a moment longer, perhaps to convince Zuko that he was  _not_  afraid, Jee broke eye contact and stalked away.

Zuko had considered apologizing for his insults earlier, and probably would have had he changed his mind about the reliability of Jee's information.

_Walking across the Great Divide,_ he scoffed internally.  _Asinine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome to the end of the chapter. Hopefully, you enjoyed the last few thousand words in spite of all the angst. Oh, SO much angst. But can we blame the boy?
> 
> This chapter may hold my record for "most changed since the initial writing" or if not it's a very close second to the prison break chapter. It is almost twice as long as it was originally and I've gone over the arguments and angst bit more times than I care to think about. So I hope it was worth it.
> 
> If not feel free to tell me about it. I love reviews/comments/all-around general engagement with my work.
> 
> And now the rambly meta-bits. Oh, I enjoy them so.
> 
> Not a negation: Just to be clear, the fact that Zuko thinks the events of "Jet" and "The Great Divide" sound ridiculous doesn't mean that they didn't happen. Jee is actually VERY good at his job, but one of the fun parts for me, in writing from a lone perspective, is just that; seeing everything from a different perspective. Zuko isn't present for 2 episodes but obviously he's still trying to find Aang. So, what then does he hear? I imagine he deals with dozens, if not hundreds of spurious rumors. So, he gets annoyed, something that he is now a little afraid of. Because of…
> 
> The Madness: Good Heavens! The chapter title? In the author notes? How gauche! But I suppose this is a far more serious topic than I'd like it to be. Mental illness is not a joke, please don't assume I mean it to be, but I am not a doctor, just a writing enthusiast with a flair for DRAMA. Iroh has revealed that his family has a chronic mental condition, and Zuko (given the time period and the fact that they can throw fire at people with their minds) is suitably horrified. So, what is the Akodo madness? First, I must point out that this is a complete invention and NOT an element of L5R in any way. Other than that, and again I am not a doctor so I'm not trying to make any statements about psychological problems, I consider it to be something of a spiritual malaise. A violent response brought on by an assault on a deeply held belief or loved one. In Matomo, it was basically the death of Zuko's innocence, or perhaps just his naivete, the fact that a bunch of badass samurai, who he'd come to respect as enemies, could just be snuffed out, by peasants no less, is a serious blow to his worldview. Peasants don't DO things like that in Zuko's simple little world. It would be like finding out that the furniture rose up and killed people for sitting on them. So, madness. This second time we have a combo trigger, he had lost the Avatar, almost disgraced himself, and has, in his simple 17-year-old way, developed the feels. So, again with the madness. All that compounded by the fact that Zuko is under a fair bit of stress. Child abuse and banishment will do that to you. Please don't think that this is the end of the discussion in this vein however. This sort of sub-plot is a recurring thing that is woven through the next two books as well, believe me when I say that it will become increasingly relevant. Look forward to it!
> 
> Deviations from the standard:
> 
> No storm: So, the events of "The Storm" for Zuko, in canon, are as follows. Argument with Jee, lots of flashback, resolution with Jee. (simplified I know but the Jee conflict is simply there as a vehicle to give us Zuko's tragic backstory). I, however, have already covered the back story. It's book 1. So that leaves us with dealing with Jee. We get an argument, sort of, at the beginning of the chapter. Although again NO junior officer would be as disrespectful to his commander, or prince, as Jee was to Zuko. But no resolution with Jee. That happens eventually but again not for a long long time. Look forward to it as WELL!
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko channels his inner ninja!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 22 July 2018


	9. The Grey Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated RWS; for real world swears
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E13 "The Blue Spirit"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised

**Late** **Spring, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The priority hawk had  _not_  bought good news.

_"The capture of the Avatar, having been determined to be of the utmost importance, has been given the highest priority by the Admiralty. Admiral Bayushi Zhao, with the approval of the rest of the board, has ordered all ports in his Majesty's Colonies closed to all ships for the duration of the crisis. Any information on the whereabouts of the Avatar should be forwarded by messenger hawk to Admiral Zhao, who has centered his task force at Shiro Pohuai."_

"I'm terribly sorry sir," Lt Taro said, sighing and leaning back in his chair in the briefing room.

"Why are  _you_  sorry, Taro? I was certain that this was the hawk promoting you to lieutenant-commander. Uncle has been planning you a  _party_ ," Zuko said, his tone quite dry.

"It's just that… nevermind sir."

"Speak your mind, lieutenant," Zuko said, walking to the window, folding his arms behind his back and gazing out at the sea.

"It's just that… the admiralty doesn't promote people to its ranks… the Fire-Lord does."

"I am aware."

"But- your highness? Surely this means that-"

"If my  _father_  had ordered Zhao to form this task force then yes, it would be a sign that I was forever outcast and in disfavor. He simply authorized his promotion."

"But he had to know-"

"Of course he did, and the message was quite clear."

"Message, sir?"

"Yes," Zuko said, glowering, "he's telling me to hurry up."

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"You are certain that you are ready for this?" Iroh asked as Zuko packed supplies for his excursion.

"I believe somebody once told me that if I waited until I was ready, then I never would be."

"What sort of idiot would say that?" Iroh asked with a wry chuckle.

"Some fool of an old man trying to get his lazy nephew out of the house most likely."

"And you are sure that this is the best way to-"

"You were right uncle, I must fulfill my duties, no matter the cost. Father is sending me a message, he compels me to hurry."

_That HAS to be it. There… there's no other logical explanation."_

"Be careful nephew."

"I will uncle," Zuko said as he shoved a white mask and a small challenge flag into his duffle.

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Zuko had had Rin drop him off a few miles north of Tohin Wo in one of the Devastator's skiffs. The idea that Zhao, even with the full force of the eastern and northern fleets could blockade the entirety of the colonies was foolish. As most, he could post ships at every port and a few in between. The fact that this wouldn't do anything to stop the Avatar, who had a pet that could  _fly_ , had made it obvious to Zuko that the blockade wasn't to stop the boy from getting out.

It was to stop Zuko from getting  _in_.

The obstacle, the  _real_  obstacle, was Zhao. That was the Fire-Lord's second and more important message. A message that Zuko felt best to keep from his crew. Plausible deniability would allow them to keep their lives and honor intact should he fail in his current endeavor.

Break into Pohuai. Find Zhao. Duel Zhao. KILL Zhao. Get back out.

A stealth challenge had served him well before at Shiro Yoritomo and while he was now convinced that the entire ill-planned venture had been another manifestation of his insanity (consumed by grief as he was with Ping's death) he could not fault its efficacy. Iroh was certain that while the Akodo sickness was spiritual in nature it did not grant its sufferers with powers or abilities beyond what were already possible.

It was a  _disease_ , not a superpower and as such Zuko was certain that his abilities at infiltration and dueling were sufficient to the task before him.

 _Very doable,_  he thought as he shouldered his rucksack.  _Now I've just got to get there._  He set off at a brisk trot for his destination, almost a week away.

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The Sankasan province was still under martial law, owing to the now guttering flames of rebellion in the province of Hinowa to the south. As such Shiro Pohuai was its nominal capital and all the roads that led there were heavily guarded with checkpoints and patrols.

The idea that  _this_ would even slow Zuko down was laughable.

He knew the strategy for each province, its chokepoints and easily defended places, had learned them as a matter of military history. Just as surely, he knew the weak points as well. Where the forest was passable, where the mountains were too steep to allow transit. As he made his way east, unseen by anyone, he felt strangely liberated. He had a clear, entirely obtainable goal ahead of him instead of the formless strategic miasma of trying to find and capture the utterly unpredictable Avatar.

Zhao could be predicted; Zuko had the measure of the man. He would be in the highest part of the central tower, located as closely to the hawkeries as was respectable so that he would be better able to micromanage. There would be a single point of in and egress from his rooms so that he might better protect himself with guards. Zuko expected at least three and was already lamenting the fact that he would most likely have to kill those samurai from stealth. If Zhao heard so much as a whisper of steel on steel before Zuko reached him he would rouse the entire garrison and flee like the little worm-roach that he was.

All in all, Zuko felt like he was on vacation, a simple stroll through the countryside, enjoying the fresh spring air, plotting the death of a dishonorable piece of refuse.

An excellent holiday indeed.

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Having taken an old puma-goat track up into the mountains Zuko stared down at Shiro Pohuai, strategizing.

Like all larger military constructions in the colonies and occupied Earth-Kingdom territories the fortress was an unrelieved battleship gray. Stone walls entirely encased in sheets of iron, both practical for defense against earthbenders and a poignant metaphor for any colonial who saw it. Three octagonal walls surrounded the central tower which Zuko knew would house the garrison's barracks, the command center, and a vault for holding the provincial treasury. Once a month a warship would travel up the Hebi river, to the port less than a quarter mile away. There it would offload supplies and soldiers, and upload collected tax moneys. It would then depart back to Ginasutra, leaving the fortress behind it in a momentary state of relaxation (as the treasury was no longer ripe for assault) and vulnerability (as the newer soldiers were integrated into their command structures).

Zuko grinned as he watched that very ship make its way away from Shiro Pohuai.  _Very doable, he_  thought, slipping on his mask.

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 _Or not,_  Zuko thought bitterly as he braced himself on the underside of a supply wagon.

Shiro Pohuai's security was NOT lax, and while Zuko felt a hint of pride that his nation's armed forces were more diligent than the ones around Shiro Yoritomo, he wished that, for the evening at least, they could be a little less competent. Not only was security not lax, it was insane. Given what he knew of the garrison's size and distribution the entire force had to have been deployed as protection for the stronghold, leaving absolutely nothing in terms of a reserve, or an external scouting force. Such a state of constant vigilance and readiness could only be counted on to be effective for a limited time. Eventually, your soldiers would begin to lose focus due to stress and mental fatigue.

Patrols around the fortress were being conducted in groups of four, with no group ever out of sight of another and as the Sun set, the fortress's tower lit up like a volcano in Fire Islands. Zhao had scrounged, not one, but  _eight_  spotlights. They had to be consuming nearly a battleship's worth of coal a night.

 _This is ridiculous,_  Zuko thought disdainfully as he practically slithered from the underside of the wagon into its covered back in the few heartbeats that he would be unobserved while doing so.  _This can't all be for ME, can it?_

He got his answer after he managed to scale the inner wall.

Here in the inner courtyard the guards had ceased their ceaseless patrolling and were standing at rigid attention in a large formation, listening as Zhao gave a thunderous speech. They cheered joylessly at predetermined intervals.

Cheering for the capture of the Avatar as Zuko stared blankly behind his Grey Ghost mask

… _Fuck._

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 _I understand that "the plan never survives the first arrow,"_  Zuko thought angrily as he dropped down into the fortress's drainage channels,  _but this is ridiculous._

It would have been difficult enough to kill Zhao and to escape. Extracting the Avatar was a whole different level of difficulty.

_So… you'll let Zhao have him?_

_Not flaming likely._

Moving quietly through the filth of the drainage ditch Zuko scrapped his original plan along with the rest of the pointless garbage that flowed past him.

_They will have the boy in the treasury vault. Under such heavy guard that silence will be impossible. This is going to get messy._

Zuko had resigned himself to a few casualties in the pursuit of Zhao. Anybody Zhao trusted enough to guard him while he slept was most assuredly just as much Zuko's enemy as Zhao. But guarding the Avatar? Those would be Fire-Nation regulars, men and women just trying to do their jobs, fulfill their duty, and behave with honor. At least he wouldn't have to be completely silent.

_Why can't things just, for ONCE, be SIMPLE!_

Zuko stopped, the drainage ditch was barricaded by a gridwork of iron bars, hence why it wasn't guarded.

_Guess it's time to see how hot my sword of flame gets._

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 _A fortress is like a tortoise,_ Zuko thought grinning behind his mask,  _both in the Earth-Kingdom and the Fire-Nation._

Finally, Zhao's idiocy and arrogance had caught up with him. Finally, something went better than Zuko expected. Maybe,  _finally_ , the spirits would favor him enough to allow him to capture the Avatar.

Because, due to Zhao's excessive external display of force it turned out there were four, only  _four,_  guards between the drainage tunnels and the Avatar. Only four, standing in a line before the door of the vault.

 _I can do four,_  Zuko thought, his grin becoming nearly feral.  _Very doable._

And with that, he burst out of concealment.

He rolled up on to a knee and flung a knife, severing the bell pull that would raise the alarm in two. Then, dodging past the gouts of flame that were already screaming towards him, he sprinted into his opponents' midst.

Before his failure in the throne room, and the subsequent exile, this was how Zuko had predominantly been trained. Standing alone against multiple opponents, a lone Lion in surrounded by jackals, was a training methodology that best suited Zuko in both character, temperament and personal ability. The key was to destabilize their teamwork, never be surrounded, get the enemy working at cross purposes, and, if possible, to redirect their attacks into their fellows. Destroy their cohesion, turn their order into chaos, transmute their concentrated unified effort into a free-for-all.

Zuko  _excelled_  at free-for-alls.

With sweeping low kicks and heavy strikes to their lower abdomens, Zuko destabilized their roots and stole their breath. When one tried to flee (Zuko hoped it was to sound the alarm and not just simple cowardice) he grabbed the man by the back of his collar and with a spin flung him bodily into one of his fellows.

The guards managed to connect with a few fire-kata, singing Zuko's grey woolens, but never as strongly as it seemed they should have. After Zuko's close-fought victory over Zhao in their Agni Kai, Iroh had had him focus particularly on his ability to disperse flame away from him, a skill that had been slightly neglected in favor of the study of the other elemental styles in his earlier training. Now by using his firebending only to defend himself (his red flames would most assuredly reveal his identity) he was able to shrug off burns as though they were merely hot gusts of air.

With a resounding  _KLUNK_  the last two guards fell to the ground, senseless, after Zuko slammed their skulls together. He'd managed to win without having to kill any of them, though he had very definitely broken or dislocated a few bones in the process.

 _Good,_  he thought breathing heavily, his heart rate dropping back to normal levels,  _very good. Now to go in there and grab the… the._

Zuko went stock still, eye going wide behind his mask, surrounded by the bodies of four unconscious samurai.

_Oh ASH. The girl!_

He'd forgotten about the Unicorn girl in his irritation over having to change his plans on the fly. He began to pace back and forth, restlessly weaving around the fallen Fire-Nation soldiers.

_There was no way she would allow to Avatar to fall into Zhao's hands uncontested. Best case scenario, she's been captured and she's somewhere else in the fortress._

His mind's eye spun to a hypothetical situation wherein he managed to save her from prison, and she was  _very_ grateful in the aftermath. He shook his head quickly before his brain decided to dissolve into a sugary mush.

_Don't be an idiot! Besides, it's just as likely that she was…_

If Zhao had killed her… he was going to die  _screaming._

 _I. CANNOT. BE. DISTRACTED BY THIS!_  he roared at himself,  _Get the Avatar! If she's still alive there's no way the boy will leave her behind and THEN I can figure out how-_

"RIBBIT!"

Zuko's thoughts were interrupted by several large frogs, seemingly paralyzed in assorted places on their bodies, wiggling through the crack between the door and the ground.

Zuko watched them silently as they half hopped, half shimmied, their way down the hallway.

 _Definitely more confusing than just fighting Zhao,_  Zuko thought, and then swung the door open.

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The boy was chained up, spread eagle between two torch columns. He had been struggling with the chains that held him, but stopped, starting like a rabbit-deer, as Zuko entered the vault.

"Who are you? What's going on? Are you here to rescue me?" Aang asked rapidly, a look of unabashedly hopeful relief painting his face.

 _For the moment, yes,_ Zuko thought, stalking forward.

There was a rather pregnant pause as Zuko stood before the much smaller boy, eyeing the cuffs at his feet and hands.

_I could cut through these with my blade of fire… but then he'd know who I am._

Luckily it turned out to be unnecessary as the chains (an obviously recent addition to what was normally only a money vault) were only secured to their pillars by stout metal pins. It would have been impossible for the boy to airbend them out, but they yielded easily enough to Zuko's efforts.

"I'll take that as a yes!" Aang said, smiling brightly after the last pin was removed. Then with a gust of airbending he propelled himself out of the vault and into the hallway.

 _Ash!_  Zuko thought furiously, moving to follow,  _how did he recognize-_

The boy was on his knees just outside the door, trying and failing to capture the odd, half paralyzed, frogs that Zuko had seen.

"Come back! And stop thawing out! Don't leave frogs! My friends are sick and they need you! Please go back to being frozen!" he cried, grasping at the slippery and uncooperative amphibians.

" _Friends need to…" What in the ashy flaming pits of Jigoku is he talking about?_

"Please Mr. Thief! Help me with these!" Aang said, turning and smiling hopefully at Zuko.

" _Thief?"_ Zuko bristled. _Oh, this little shit._

Zuko responded by grabbing the boy by his collar and dragging him towards the entrance to the drainage tunnels.

"Wait!" Aang cried, his legs still spinning as he kept trying to chase the weird animals. "My friends need to suck on those frogs!"

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The getaway only went smoothly until they began to ascend the innermost wall of the fortress. They were halfway up the wall when the alarm gongs began to ring loudly throughout the compound and one of the searchlights found them almost immediately.

Zuko blamed the Avatar's bright yellow and oranges robes for this.

Aside from his choice of outfits, Zuko found nothing else to blame the boy for as they fought their way through the garrison. He was surprised to find that he and the Avatar worked well together, anticipating and covering one another's backs without difficulty. They had saved one another's lives easily a half-dozen times before they cleared the second wall.

The Avatar was a phenomenal bender. He killed no one, moving through and around the garrison's ji-samurai like fog in a forest, and where that was not possible he managed to cast them aside almost effortlessly. Zuko, using only his sword in an effort to maintain his anonymity, was barely able to keep up.

 _Defeating you will be the highlight of my life,_  Zuko thought, staring at the back of the boy's bald head as they flew across the ground towards the last wall.  _I may never be Fire-Lord_   _but bringing you down will be enough of an honor for me._

Despite both of their skill, once the less numerous firebending samurai hit the field their progress slowed to a crawl. Zuko might have been able to take out four of them with the element of surprise on his side, but prepared, aware, alert, and backed up by a multitude of their non-bending brethren they were an impressive force. The Avatar spun a shield of air to protect them both as they were pinned to the inside of the last gate and surrounded.

"Hold your fire!" Zhao's voice rang out, and the flames died away. "The Avatar must be captured alive!"

Zuko grinned behind his mask and with a sudden lurch he grabbed the boy's collar again. This time to place his katana's blade at his neck. Zuko cocked his head to the side, questioningly, as if to ask "now what will you do?"

Zhao's eyes narrowed. "Open the gates," he spat, rage making his voice heavy.

"Admiral? What are you doing?" one of the officers, a colonel by his armor rank, asked in surprise.

"Let them out. NOW."

Men ran to obey and a few moments later the front gates of Shiro Pohuai creaked open at Zuko's back. Pulling the boy along with him so as to not accidentally slit his throat, Zuko moved backward, out of the fortress.

_It's only a few hundred yards to the woodline. Once I get there I'll be home free. We stop for a moment, I bind this fool's hands and feet, then move north to the rendezvous point._

After a good minute of backward walking, Zuko saw Zhao come to the top of the outer wall to watch his prize disappear.

_Just a bit further… almost there… why is that bastard smili-_

Zuko never even saw the arrow that knocked him unconscious.

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Zuko awoke to blurry shapes in shifting shades of green and gold.

_Where in the flame am I?_

"You know what the worst part of being born a hundred years ago is?" someone said.

 _It's HIM! Seize him!_ Zuko couldn't move, his head still swimming.

"I miss all the friends I used to hang out with," Aang continued, becoming recognizable as the yellow and orange blob to Zuko's right. The green and gold were the leaves of the forest trees.

_On your feet! He's right there!_

"I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us? We'd get into and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had." The boy was in sharper focus now, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, his knees held to his chest. He turned to look at Zuko, something like sadness in his eyes. "He was from the Fire-Nation, just like you. If we had known each other back then do you think we could have been friends too?"

"No," Zuko said flatly, and he bent fire.

Aang evaded easily and fled, moving swiftly through the trees.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hello gentle-persons! Welcome to the end of the chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, or you know, tolerated it. I hope, at the very least, you didn't consider it a waste of your time. That's success for me, NOT wasting your time with sub-standard story telling. Low standards, the key to happiness!
> 
> But seriously, you're all wonderful people, thanks for reading!
> 
> And now the bits which you will skip over! The META-bits.
> 
> Low Skills: In the game of L5R, your skills are divided into several categories. Your "high" skills, "bugei" skills, "merchant" skills, and your "low" skills. Essential they are listed here in descending order of "skills I WANT people to know I have." High skills are things like calligraphy, meditation, and the courtier skill. People want to show these off. Bugei skills are martial skills. Kenjutsu (sword skill), Kyujutsu (bow skill) and so on. Merchant skills are a no-brainer, but it's LOW skills that I wish to discuss. Low skills are things that, as a samurai, you should NOT be seen to be doing. Ever. The fact that stealth is a useful skill does not make it honorable. Zuko is very hesitant about using this ability. The full honorable thing to do would be to knock on the front gate and politely ask Zhao to come out so that he could get his ass handed to him. But Zuko knows that's not going to happen. This I think is the one instance that Zuko is… not OK with it, but accepts the necessity of doing something below board. He's just removing complications, and not giving Zhao the coward's option of denying him access to him. It's all about appearances for people in this culture. You can be unhappy with your duty, but not visibly so. You can lie, but unless you do it with confidence it's grounds for dishonor. You can sneak up on somebody and kill them… but if you get caught doing that you're in trouble. I think the best way to think of it is that it might be considered cowardice, not to mention that if you are SEEN while trying to be stealthy you obviously aren't good enough at it. So dishonor. Dishonor on you… dishonor on your cow…
> 
> Deviations from the standard
> 
> Swords, they don't cut through chains: OK. Yes, it's a kids show, but that no excuse for giving the youth unhealthy expectations about the power of swords. They're NOT for cutting through metal chains like that. Just… no.
> 
> So… many… plot holes: how does Zuko know about Aangs capture? Why was he present when Zhao was promoted to admiral? How… what…why? So I changed it. That kind of handwaving non-sense only works when the character in question spends a lot of time off screen, you can just go "oh, he just happened to be passing through." Doesn't work when the character is your protagonist. So I had to give Zuko a reason for being there, and what a GOOD reason. At least I think so. I regret nothing.
> 
> Thanks for sticking it out to the end. Extra credit for you.
> 
> Also, as a note, I may be putting up an edit/minor re-write of chapter one of this book. So those of you who subscribe, should you see a notification in the middle of the week that's probably it. No promises though, just something I'm kicking around after re-reading it.
> 
> NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko meets new people and recites a poem!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 29 July 2018


	10. The Samurai of the Water-Tribe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated BA, for badassery
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E15 "Bato of the Water-Tribe"
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

 

**Early Summer, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

After a week of hiking back to the coast, Zuko found the rendezvous point to be very poorly guarded.

Probably because of all the  _singing._

"What in Akodo's name are you doing?" he said flatly, drawing attention to himself for the first time since entering (what  _should_  have been) the defensive picket line.

His officers, and a few of the non-commissioned crew, dropped the various instruments they held as they sprang to attention. Iroh, sitting in their midst, a genial smile on his face, remained seated. "Ah, nephew. It's music night! Come sit by the fire and listen. They've grown quite good," he said, indicating the now nervously sweating soldiers around him.

Zuko rolled his eye. "How wonderful for them," he growled, "but we are  _leaving_. NOW."

The guilty officers sprung into a frenzy of activity, packing bags and tearing down tents. Unnoticed in the hubbub Iroh moved quietly to Zuko's side.

"I take it from your lack of shouting that your mission was a success?" Iroh murmured, slipping his hands into their adjoining sleeves.

"No," Zuko said simply, still glowering at his officers.

Iroh narrowed his eyes. "And yet you return here…  _alive?_ "

"He captured the Avatar, uncle."

Iroh's eyes widened minutely in shock then faded back to normal. "How?"

"I do not know. He managed to acquire the loyalty of the Tsuruchi archers though. Perhaps they did it?" The clan of master archers was famous for their unique style of a kyujutsu and Zuko restrained himself from rubbing at the now faded bruise on his forehead.

"Hmmm. But I assume once again from the fact that you are here that Zhao no longer  _has_  the Avatar?"

"You are correct." Once again Zuko didn't elaborate further.

Before Iroh could ask any more questions, the entire camp went still at the crashing sound of breaking tree branches. Something was coming, and everywhere throughout the half-packed camp hands fell to the hilts of weapons or moved into bending forms. One of the sailors nervously raised an unusual stringed instrument over his head and waved it in what he seemed to think was a threatening manner.

After a tense moment, and with a final resounding  _CRACK,_  a large eyeless beast the size of a rhino-lizard burst from the darkened woods, its massive snout flaring at the ground. A woman in her mid-20s with long dark hair was riding its back, a look of intense concentration on her face.

"MOVE, you scags!" she shouted as the creature lunged forwards. "I'm after a fugitive!"

_Damn. Did Zhao send her?_  Zuko thought, preparing to strike.

But the sniffing beast ignored him. Instead, it snuffled and snorted its way onto Zuko's skiff where it tore a hole in the deck boards with its surprisingly powerful jaws. All of a sudden, a ragged looking peasant scrambled out, making a break for the water.

But he didn't get overly far. The beast's tongue lashed out, quick as lightning, and snapped into the man's back. He fell to the ground instantly, rigid and motionless. The woman quickly dismounted, bound him hand and foot with the ease of one long practiced at the task, and then hoisted him over her shoulder.

"You put a hole in my ship," Zuko said, approaching her swiftly.

"You were harboring a fugitive. Besides-" she glanced at the large hole- "it'll buff out."

Iroh, only a pace behind Zuko, laughed uproariously and beamed at the woman cheekily. "Oh, this  _is_  good! Beautiful  _and_  funny. Please don't kill this one, my prince."

" _Prince?_ " she said, smirking. "Figures. Looks more like a picnic than a military operation."

Zuko ignored this insult and took another step closer to the woman, glaring down at her. "How did you find him?" he asked softly.

She tensed, but hid it well as she glared back up at him. "My shirshu can smell a rat from a continent away, and her tongue has got a paralyzing quality to it that makes bounty hunting a snap." She began to edge away from Zuko. "That being said, I've got to turn this fellow in before it wears off so…" she turned around to leave only to find Cpt. Haki standing between her and the shirshu.

"You are in luck," Zuko said, "as a commander of His Majesty's forces I am empowered to dispense justice here in the colonies. How much is he worth?"

"Ten koku," she said, turning back to Zuko smiling wickedly.

"Ten  _koku_?" Iroh said skeptically. "What did he do? Run off with the governor's daughter?"

"No idea, I never read that far into the wanted posters. You going to  _pay_  me or not?"

"Who here was in charge of security for the camp?" Zuko said, raising his voice.

"Uh… I suppose that was me, sir?" Haki said, looking mildly surprised.

"Then pay her for doing  _your_  job, captain."

Grumbling to himself, Haki took the prisoner and began rooting around in his coin purse.

"Now, seeing as you are between jobs and you owe me for damages to my ship…"

"Not a chance princey, Kinshoko June is a free agent," June said, snatching her koku from Haki and moving to mount her beast."

"You will-" Zuko began angrily

"We'll pay your weight in  _gold"_  Iroh shouted, cutting Zuko off.

She turned, all smiles again. "Make it  _your_ weight in gold, handsome, and we have a deal."

Iroh laughed again. "Deal!"

Zuko shook his head, wondering privately where his uncle thought such a fortune would be coming from.  _I'll deal with you later uncle,_  he thought as he stepped forward and pulled Katara's necklace out of his inner breast pocket.

"I need you to find someone."

June looked nonplussed as her eyes flicked from the necklace dangling between Zuko's fingers and the man himself. "What happened, your girlfriend run off?"

Zuko grit his teeth. "I'm not  _after_  the girl. I'm after one of the people she's traveling with, a little bald monk." He advanced on June, looming over her again. "You will find them, use your… shirshu to paralyze them, and once they are safely in Otosan Uchi-"

"I'm  _not_ going all the way to-" she cut off as a bar of red fire materialized in Zuko's fist hissing malignantly.

"Once they are there you will have…  _everything_  you could possibly desire. Am I clear?"

June glared up at him for a moment. "Not a lot of people say no to you, do they?"

"Never more than once," Zuko said with a nod.

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They moved north along the coast at speed.

Zuko had assigned Lt Rin to watch June, which for some reason had prompted Lt Bo to begin asserting that  _she_ should come along as well. She and June had almost come to blows when the latter had thrown her arm over Rin's shoulders and said that she would "take good care of him."

Zuko was mystified but had dispatched Bo and the other officers back to the ship with Cpt Haki. Haki would return with his cavalry company. Lt Bo, despite her arguments to the contrary, would stay with the ship, which would shadow the coastline alongside the land detachment.

Zuko had found himself surprised, but pleased, by the skill of Nyla, which turned out to be the name of June's pet shirshu. After a few minutes of sniffing the necklace, the creature had been able to give them all a solid heading, north of their position. After Haki returned with the cavalry they all mounted up and rode northward.

Iroh had elected come along as well, to no one (least of all Zuko's) surprise.

After a few days of travel, they passed through the town of Makapu. The small city was in the midst of a celebration when Zuko arrived. Celebrating the fact that they had just survived a severe volcanic eruption… thanks to the intervention of the  _Avatar_. Zuko was so pleased with Nyla's performance he decided not to execute anyone there for their obviously treasonous sentiments.

"You are to be commended for your skill Ms. Kinshoko," Zuko said, bowing slightly as they made camp that evening. "I must admit I had expected this to be nothing more than a wild sabretooth-goose chase, and for you to have slipped away unnoticed while our backs were turned."

She shook her head with an amused look on her face. "What sort of work would find if I did something like that? Besides, I take a great deal of pride in my skill as a hunter and Nyla here won't rest until she's found her prey," she said, patting the beast affectionately. Her smile changed slightly and she took a step towards Zuko, resting her hand lightly on his chest. "Besides 'everything I could  _possibly_ desire' sounds pretty good to me, Highness. I just hope you can live up to that," she finished with a husky note in her voice.

"Capture them for me and you will have all that and more. Lands, titles, gold. You will want for nothing."

She stepped away, chuckling. "She must be something else, this girl of yours."

"I… beg your pardon?"

"The  _necklace_ girl?"

Zuko frowned. "She- she is my enemy, the ally of my prey. She is a means to an end. Nothing more."

"Oh, nothing at all I'm sure, I don't suppose you would mind if we just killed them all except your Avatar? Probably save a lot of hassle in transport fees."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT," Zuko snapped, "The agreement was-"

"Yes, I know what the agreement was," she said, and her ever-present smirk grew wider. "You're kind of an idiot, aren't you?"

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"It seems that I have been a terrible sensei to you nephew," Iroh said seriously as he poured Zuko another cup of tea the next evening.

Zuko's eye grew wide and shocked. "Wh-what? Uncle? You were a great sensei."

"I had thought so as well, but it seems I must acknowledge my utter and complete failure."

"Uncle… I swear to you, I  _will_ catch the Avatar. I will NOT stop and I will not let anything distract-"

"Who said anything about the Avatar?"

Zuko blinked, then looked around the clearing where his cavalry company was setting up camp for the night as though he were trying to find where the entire point of the conversation had gone.

"What," Zuko began slowly, " _are_  you talking about?"

Iroh's expression had begun to take on an aspect of a man pained by a terrible burden. "Zuko, I cannot fathom how you continue to survive in life when you cannot even tell when a beautiful woman is trying to sleep with you."

Zuko had of course chosen this exact moment to take a large swig of tea, which now erupted out his nose violently. Iroh shook his head mournfully as Zuko hacked and coughed.

"And now you waste good tea too? Honestly, I don't know where I went wrong with you."

"You are out of your mind Uncle. Absolutely OUT of-"

"I'm just trying to figure out," Iroh said musingly, ignoring Zuko's sputters, "is why it is that nearly every beautiful woman we meet just throws herself at  _you_."

"-don't know why I even  _listen_  to you. It's always just some-"

"It's the height, isn't it? Or maybe I need to trim my beard?"

"-ridiculous puns and your damned hot leaf juice-"

"I thought women liked grey hair? Maybe some dyes…"

"Absolutely ASININE!" Zuko roared.

A few hours after they broke camp that next morning the coast turned westward and the terrain changed from the old growth forests around Makapu to sandy coastline and rolling hills. As though in response to the change Nyla began to grow more and more excited, and increased her speed dramatically, angling away from the sea.

"We're CLOSE!" June shouted, that look of concentration taking hold of her face. "Very close."

And after a few hours of pushing their rhino-lizards to their limits, they FOUND them. The Shinjo siblings stood back to back in the middle of a dirt track road, a pair of large rucksacks discarded at their feet as they prepared to face down the cavalrymen that had surrounded them.

"So,  _this_  is your girlfriend?" June said with a laugh. "No wonder she left, she's way too pretty for you."

"I am NOT his girlfriend!" Katara shouted angrily as Sokka, despite the situation he found himself in, snickered with laughter.

_Wow,_ Zuko thought, pausing for a moment after dismounting his rhino-lizard,  _I didn't misremember, she really IS stunning when she's angry._  He shook his head quickly in an attempt to clear his mind.  _The boy isn't here though. Perhaps he heard us coming and ran away like the coward he is, abandoning his allies._  Zuko took a closer look at the Shinjos.  _Something IS different though… about the both of them._

As Zuko looked over his erstwhile opponents his eye counted their weapons as a simple matter of course. Sokka had drawn a long knife that appeared to be carved from bone even before he was completely surrounded but there was still another weapon at his waist.

It was a  _wakizashi._  Katara had one as well, purple and ivory stuck, in her belt, the hilt resting next to a waterskin that was slung over her back.

Zuko placed his right fist in his left palm and bowed over top of them. "May I offer you my sincere congratulations on your successful gempukku Shinjo Sokka, Shinjo Katara." As he rose from the bow, his face had twisted into an evil grin, his eye on Sokka. " _Now_ , I get to kill you."

After a moment of panicked gabbling, Sokka managed to form a coherent sentence. "I challenge you to a duel!" he squawked, pointing his finger at Zuko rather rudely.

"Unwise," Zuko said softly, his hand on the scabbard of his katana, "I am less likely to take you  _alive_  if this becomes a matter of honor."

"We- we can set  _terms_  though? With a duel?"

"We can," Zuko said with a nod, "but I am under no obligation to accept them."

"Fine. If Shinjo wins, you leave us… and Aang alone; forever! If Akodo wins-" Sokka paused here, stroking an imaginary beard in thought- "if Akodo wins… you can have my sister!"

Zuko, despite using every trick he knew to prevent it, flushed on the working side of his face as his heart did a backflip.

"SOKKA!" Katara shrieked.

"Ok, ok," Sokka said placatingly, "You win and we'll tell you everything we know about the Avatar's whereabouts. Deal?"

"Deal," Zuko growled, "I grant you five minutes to prepare yourself."

" _Our_ selves," Sokka said, grinning.

_He did say "if Shinjo wins" didn't he?_  Zuko mused, his eye flicking between the two of them.  _Clever, but not clever enough. These two aren't duelists and there aren't any large bodies of water within bending range. Unless they have a strategy I haven't seen yet, they will probably hinder each other more than help._

Zuko said nothing more, just began to watch his opponents, centering himself, clearing his mind in a way that only seemed to work right before a fight. Sokka had begun a series of ridiculous looking stretching exercises and Katara simply fidgeted nervously, eyes darting between her brother, Zuko, and the ground.

_She looks taller,_ Zuko thought, forgetting for a moment that looking at the girl who gave him heart palpitations before having to fight her was not a great plan.  _I suppose being tied to a tree would make anyone look smaller. Maybe after I win I should return her neck… lace…_

She had a  _new_  necklace on, a handmade thing of beads and flowers.

" _It's a betrothal necklace,"_  Lt Bo had said and Zuko's mind went cold with rage.  _There is only one person who could have given that to her,_ he thought as his knuckles popped on his clenched fists.

"My congratulations on your betrothal, Shinjo," he said trying and, for the most part, failing to keep the snarl out of his voice.

Katara's eyes grew wide in surprise, her hand fluttering to her neck.

_I'll KILL him._

"What? No! It's just-" Katara sputtered.

_You are NOT killing the Avatar. You need him._

"Time is up. Prepare yourselves," Zuko said, igniting his sword of fire and causing the Shinjos to take an involuntary step back. "Welcome to adulthood," he snarled, and then he charged.

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The duel proceeded much as Zuko had anticipated.

He disarmed Sokka within seconds, his sword of flame slicing through Sokka's bone knife as easily as if were not even there. Sokka had the mental acuity to roll away however, abandoning the ruined weapon almost instantly, but it still left him shaken.

Katara was a different matter, her bending had gotten  _good_. Even through his rage Zuko noticed that she had improved in both speed and power since the last time he had seen her. The fact of the matter was that she only had a waterskin's worth of water to work with and Zuko quickly took that away from her as well, evaporating the water in an instant after she fumbled a parry. He did his best to ignore the shocked look on her face as he knocked her flat with a kick to the stomach.

All told, the duel only lasted a few minutes, long enough that Zuko managed to get his temper under control at least, but it probably seemed to take much longer to the Shinjos, who, after they were disarmed and Zuko banished his sword of flame, took a series of strikes from his hands and feet. Zuko took out the last of the wild flares of his temper by doing his best to utterly humiliate Sokka again, beating him near to senseless, driving him to his knees.

"Disappointing," Zuko said, sneering at Sokka.

Sokka was breathing heavily, having had the wind knocked out of him by a particularly vicious fire strike to the abdomen, and Zuko drew his katana from his sheath with a sibilant rasp.

"You are defeated Shinjo Sokka," Zuko intoned gravely, pointing the blade at the young man's neck and beginning a slow walk around behind him. "I grant you the right of seppuku. That you might die with your honor unblemished. Go now into the arms of you ancest-"

"NO! Wait!" Katara cried, at last finding her breath, "We surrender! WE SURRENDER!"

Sokka actually managed to look angry. "She doesn't speak for us!" he shouted, shooting a glare at his sister.

"And yet you spoke for her earlier did you not?" Zuko said, narrowing his eye.

For once, Sokka had no response.

Zuko locked eyes with Katara resting his blade on Sokka's shoulder. "Where. Is. HE?" he growled.

"We don't know," she said, her eyes downcast, seeming ashamed. "We split up yesterday. We were going to leave with our Uncle Bato and he would continue north to Shiro Doji, the Crane capital."

"You expect me to believe that after traveling halfway around the world together you split up within  _weeks_  of your goal?" Zuko said with a snarl. "How  _stupid_  do you think I am?!"

_How dare she LIE to me!_

"Pretty stupid," Sokka wheezed painfully, "but it's true. He… lied to us about some things. We got angry and left. We were coming back to try and find him, but he's probably flown off already."

"Flown off from  _where_?"

"The Shrine of Ebisu, a half day's travel along this road," Sokka said, gritting his teeth.

"Very well," Zuko said. He motioned to June with his head and Nyla's tongue shot out twice in quick succession paralyzing the pair.

"Somebody see to their wounds," Zuko said beginning to walk away. He stopped for a moment and turned back to the prone form of Katara.

"We've been tracking you by scent," he said dangling the necklace in front of her eyes, then tying it around her wakizashi hilt. "So, I'll be needing  _this_ ," he snarled as he pulled the beaded necklace off her neck and stalked towards the bounty hunter.

"New scent June."

June chuckled. "Breakups are the  _worst_ , aren't they?"

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A few minutes of sniffing and a short ride later Nyla, once again in a slavering frenzy, smashed right through the doors to the shrine and began running in circles in its inner courtyard. Zuko dismounted his rhino-lizard quickly and strode over to what he guessed, based on the unique headdress, to be the mother superior of the abbey.

"I hope you will forgive the intrusion, mother?" Zuko said bowing politely. "I will have my men repair the door. I come seeking your blessing and a fugitive."

The nun bowed back, though she looked less than pleased to see him. "The Kami Ebisu favors those who behave with integrity and perseverance, my son. Those who would take the quicker path…" she glanced pointedly at the pacing Shirshu.

_The Avatar has been at this one. She looks at me as though I were planning to eat her favorite pet for dinner!_

"Somehow I doubt that the Kami of honest  _work_  looks favorably upon an airbender, mother," Zuko said, narrowing his eye. "Perhaps you might bless us, the common soldiers? There aren't many trades more honest than that."

As they glared at each other, the prince and the holy woman, Nyla let out a keening whine and began pawing at the air. Only a heartbeat later the Avatar dropped out of the sky and sent a blast of air at the soldiers guarding the Shinjos. Nyla, nostrils flaring wide, launched herself at him but was intercepted en route by Appa, who appeared just as suddenly, flying over the wall of the shrine, riding out of the sunset like a storm cloud.

Zuko flew at Aang, a roar on his lips and red fire forming at his fists in an instant, his brain awash with, what his conscious mind refused to acknowledge as, jealous rage. They met, trading blow for blow, near the center of the courtyard. The Avatar was actually attempting to stand his ground for once and Zuko was bound and determined to  _burn_  that ground to cinders. Wind and Flame pulsed and spun, until a shield of air hit a jet of flame at  _just_  the wrong moment, creating an explosion that sent them both flying in opposite directions.

A few moments passed before Zuko was able to regain his feet. He was, however, pleased with the scene that greeted him. His men had cornered Appa, menacing him with spears, not allowing him to take off. Rin and Haki, along with June and Nyla, were chasing down the boy, forcing him to weave and dodge dangerously atop the shrine's roof.

_Everything is under control,_  Zuko thought, pleased.  _There will be nothing to stop us this ti-_

Suddenly a massive plume of water blasted into Haki, knocking him off the rooftop.

_What in the Sun's name?_  Zuko spun to his left clearing his blind spot.

Only to find Katara, on her feet, bending a flood of water from a nearby well.

"Is this the Unicorn's idea of SURRENDER?!" Zuko roared, starting towards her.

"He's right there!" Katara shouted triumphantly. "Now  _you_  know all  _I_  know about his whereabouts!" She bent a torrent of water around herself and began to move his way as well, narrowing her eyes. "Now  _I_  get to kill  _you_ ," she snarled.

Zuko barely even noticed the words, all he could see was that she had put on her old necklace, the one he'd returned to her.

_If she'd betrothed herself to the Avatar she wouldn't have done THAT… would she?_

Zuko laughed manically, mostly in relief, and executed the "Lion's Roar" kata, fire appearing from his hands and mouth in a roaring red burst. A primal challenge as old as the Fire-Nation itself.

And wonder of wonders, Katara screamed back. Not a bending maneuver, but just a simple honest cry of rage, eyes burning with the same terrible fury that had already given Zuko many sleepless nights.

"AKODO!" he roared and lept.

"SHINJO!" she responded and pounced.

And they met in the center of the courtyard with all the force of a volcano exploding underwater.

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Thought died.

As they circled one another, fire and ice slamming together with concussive force, it was as if they were both partners in some incredibly violent dance. Like animals in the wild they circled one another, snarling and cursing. Flame met water, ice met red blade, steam gathered. Their kata complemented and opposed one another, balancing and repelling in equal measure.

Zuko  _understood_  the fight, had the grasp of it almost immediately, and somewhere, in his heart of hearts, he understood… that he would  _lose._

He found that he didn't care.

He was too wild, enjoying the fight too much. It was the happiest he'd been in years. Katara was focused, her rage like a storm, implacable and deadly. Her fury, her skill, her everything was  _breathtakingly_  beautiful.

Fire… comes from the  _breath_.

The real mistake was when he followed her down the well.

She had forced him to dodge a series of icy disks she had whipped at him, separated from a block of ice at her feet, and when he spun back and refocused he saw her disappear  _down_  the well she's been drawing water from. He immediately pursued, like a hound after a mole-squirrel, leaping on top of the well and throwing a massive gout of fire down after her. It was snuffed out, and Zuko thrown aloft when the entire contents of the well burst upwards in a raging flood.

He hit the ground hard, but rolled to his feet, blocking most of the shards of ice she threw at him.

Only  _most_  of them.

Zuko could taste the blood in his mouth as he sank to his knees, hands grabbing reflexively at the spear like foot of ice that had punched all the way through him.

_Well... I guess this is it then,_ he thought, a sense of calm flowing over him.  _It's over. It's finally over._

His eye flicked up as he heard the rasping sound of steel being drawn. Katara had drawn her wakizashi and was pointing it at his neck. Rage still in her eyes, she began to slowly move towards him.

_Helped into the next life by the woman I love? What more could I ask for?_  No voice sounded in his mind to contradict that thought.  _Huh. I guess this WAS a storybook romance after all._

The sounds of the courtyard, Katara's footfalls, the cries of battle from where the Avatar still fought his soldiers, the sounds inside him, the hammer of his heart, his wheezing breath, all of it fell away. The world grew quiet, still, and in that silence he could hear it.

The  _Song._

The song of his ancestors, the drums and chants, the roaring throng calling him.

Calling him  _home._

He knew what he had to do.

He drew his wakizashi, a quick jerking motion, and Katara reflexively took a step back, expecting an attack. Zuko simply placed the tip at his belly and spat blood out of his mouth.

"Sun on the water

Grey the storm approaching me

In death, I go home."

He spoke his death haiku softly, managing it despite the blood that still slowly poured into his mouth, a smile coming to his lips. He closed his eye and steeled himself for the pain that would come from the triangular cut, spilling his innards out onto the stone courtyard.

An honorable death… at last.

The moment came… and he found that he couldn't move his arms. He opened his eye, stunned to see that they were encased in ice. Katara was now in front of him, her wakizashi sheathed, looking pale and horrified.

"Wha-" he tried, but he couldn't even form words anymore. He fell forward onto Katara, unable to even remain kneeling anymore. Katara caught him, pushed him onto his back and took his wakizashi from his frozen arms.

_Just- just let me die dammit._  But he couldn't get the words out.

Katara bent the rest of the ice off his arms, as well as the blade in his stomach, and began to press her hands to the wound, trying to stymie the flow of blood.

_Is she… crying?_

The dying sunlight glinted in her tears and in the necklace at her neck. Zuko, without knowing how he found the strength, lifted his right hand up to touch it gently.

"…'isss pretty…" he murmured and then passed out.

 

* * *

 

**A/N:  Greeting weary travelers and welcome to end of the chapter! Good, bad, really ugly? You be the judge! Feel free to comment/review/what-have-you. I enjoy feedback. But either way you read the whole thing, and THAT my friends is all I can reasonably ask for. Thank you muchly!**

**Now the meta-bits!**

**Unicorn Gempukku:  It's ice dodging. The metaphor was pretty clear on watching the series again while working on this project of mine. Right of passage, a test of manhood, blah blah blah, it's gempukku. Sokka and Katara are now adults and samurai in the eyes of there tribe and the world at large. A little late to the party but that's not their fault. It is also good to note that in this AU Hakoda has actually been gone almost nine years at this point, so most of their skills are self-taught. Which just makes how good they are all the more impressive.**

**Rokugoni religion:  So, I'll try not to write a thesis paper here, but bear with me. In L5R proper there is a single unified religion, fused together from three separate elements by imperial fiat. You have Shintao(a Buddhism/Taoism hybrid), Fortunism(Shinto-like animism) and Ancestor Worship(just what it says on the tin). The different clans(dojos in this AU) favor one or two of the aspects of the religion above the others. The Dragons(Aang's dojo) are Shintaoists, detachment and all that. The Lion are primarily ancestor worshipers, with an understanding that the gods (or kami/spirits in this case) are very real and powerful creatures. The Kami Ebisu, who is mentioned in this chapter, is the Fortune of Honest Work, a patron of farmers and tradesmen. You should also expect figures from Avatar-verse (Wan Shi Tong, La, Tui, and so on) to fall into this same category; the Great Kami.**

**June:  Ahhh June, voiced by the redoubtable Jennifer Hale of FemShep fame. I love that character. She definitely seems the type to me to just roll into a military encampment, rip stuff apart, throw shade and sass, and flirt with the fellas. Definitely ** _**Renegade** _ **FemShep. Also, anybody feeling the dissonance of having Zuko "loom" over her? I keep trying to slip allusions to height in there. Zuko is the same height as Ozai at this point, who was NOT a short dude.**

**No hand waving with the scroll: Man, I just hate some hand waving in storytelling. Having Nyla somehow** _**magically** _ **know that the scroll that just** _**happened** _ **to fall out into the road had Aang's scent on it is just a narrative tragedy. SO, I changed it. I regret nothing.**

**Sokka, giving Katara shit:  So now we play a bit of a game where we examine what's happening off camera. Honestly putting stuff like this in the author notes DOES feel like cheating to me, but I've already written over 200k words in a single POV and I feel changing over now is just as bad. So please bear with me. Anyway, we have Sokka having a bit of a laugh when June calls Katara Zuko's girlfriend. In the back of my brain, I imagine that Sokka has been giving Katara a great deal of shit about boys for the last few weeks. First, you've got her being captured by Zuko and tied to a tree. Using my personal experience as an older brother with a sister I know Sokka probably just made an off-handed comment about THAT being how dating works in the Fire-Nation. I also know Katara would have absolutely flipped her shit. Sokka would have then realized that somehow, he had accidentally struck teasing ** _**gold** _ **. He'd have gotten a few good ones in before JET happened.**

**And then it would have got worse. "Katara has the worst taste in men" and "Wait until your Fire-Nation boyfriend finds out about your Rebel boyfriend!" and so on. Katara would have been extremely pissed, not only is she embarrassed about Jet and being captured because she snuck off with the waterbending scroll, she is also getting mixed signals now that she is in the Fire-Nation colonies. Zuko is known there, had been traveling around for 8-10 months "searching" for the Avatar. He's actually** _**liked** _ **in the colonies, being one of the few members of the royal family to take more than a passing interest in them in recent history. There is also the fact that Zuko is, despite his own opinions, rather good looking. Every time I write that "her face flushed with anger" you've got to remember that even the narrator is viewing things from Zuko's perspective. She's actually just as embarrassed as he is most of the time. So, we've got ALL this mixed together in a confusing mish-mash of EMOTION which is why we get…**

**Katara the BAMF; ass-kicking and healing:  Yep. The chapter "rating" is referring to Katara. So we've got a confused Katara, who has only recently been pronounced a full samurai. She is subsequently lied to by her very good friend (Aang's concealment of the scroll), referred to as Zuko's girlfriend by a total stranger, forced into a duel by her brother against the main source of her confusion, then mistakenly assumed to be ** _**engaged** _ **to Aang. She has to be confused by that, Zuko's reaction is very OBVIOUSLY jealousy. Then the good-looking guy, who people have recently been telling her is a local folk-hero, beats the ever-loving shit out of her brother, returns her mother's necklace, and then tries to kill her friend. Serious emotional whiplash, no wonder she snaps.**

**So when she escapes her bonds, levels the playing field for Aang a bit, she goes for the main source of her emotional distress; Zuko. One of my biggest departments from canon in this book so far I think. Katara is a badass. She is a damned waterbending prodigy and the decedent of war chiefs. She is not taking this crap anymore. So, she fights Zuko. She gets her "you can't knock me down" moment early. She is so taken by her fury that she doesn't even notice that she impaled Zuko. I think she believed she had just knocked the wind out of him.**

**Then Zuko pulls his wakizashi.**

**I think that snaps her out of it. She sees that this is** _**serious** _ **business for Zuko, though she really doesn't know why yet. She also gets her equivalent to Aang's "firebending is dangerous" moment from "The Deserter." And then to further accelerate her own personal storyline, she figures out how to heal right there and then instead of next episode.**

**What, you didn't think I was going to let Zuko get** _**killed** _ **did you?**

**Wow, that was a lot of notes! If you stuck through to the end you get a bonus point, bully for you.**

**Thanks again for reading! Hope it was enjoyable.**

 

**NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

**Iroh drinks tea! Zuko recovers, then makes a desperate gamble!**

**TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

**Original post date: 5 August 2018**


	11. The Master Manipulator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated ME, for mostly exposition.
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E18 "The Waterbending Master."
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**High Summer, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Iroh had not lied, Lt Bo was an  _excellent_  biwa player.

The crew of the Devastator sat around the fire pit on the main deck, listening, as she played. It was a somber song, more fitting for a sadder season than high summer.

And yet no one there would question its appropriateness.

" _A sad song and a soldier far from home go together like water and rice."_ Zuko's great-uncle Ken-Ryu had written that in the back of his copy of  _LEADERSHIP_.

And so the crew sat, entranced, caught in memories, as they sat in port on their last night aboard.

Zuko stood away from the main body of troops, arms behind his back, staring north, out over the sea, lost in thought.

He'd found himself remarkably calm when he had awoken on his ship, his stomach bandaged heavily, almost six weeks ago. He knew that when someone came to give him a status report they would reveal that the Avatar had escaped again.

He had accepted that his task was most likely futile.

But that did not change the fact that it was his  _duty_. His honored father had ordered the Avatar captured, and Zuko was a loyal samurai, a loyal  _son_. He would continue trying until his duty  _killed_  him. He realized now how petty, how foolish, he had been to consider giving in to dishonorable suicide. Continuing in the face of the impossible? That was the paradox, that was  _Bushido_ , that was  _duty_ , that was  _HONOR_. That he might be forced to fight and possibly kill the woman he loved, as he was now able to recognize her, was immaterial. As much as he had loathed the Fire-Nation romances that his mother had collected, he did remember them. They were full of lovers on opposing sides of conflicts, and it was considered exceptionally noble to persevere in one's duty despite the pangs of the heart.

_And if you were to give up… how are you going to see her again?_

His fight with Katara had flashed through his mind at the oddest moments as he made his way north. He could remember ever kata, every bend, every look of rage and terror that had been on her face. She was perfect in those moments, almost an artistic expression of a raging storm at sea.

After he'd woken, his uncle had apprised him of what had happened after he had fallen. After Katara had fixed whatever internal damage she had caused in him (how she had done so was still something of a mystery) she had single-handedly turned the course of battle at the Shrine of Ebisu. Zuko had made no effort to fight the swell of pride that burst in him like the sun when he heard that.

She had bent the stocks of perfume. The nuns, it seemed, kept themselves busy by making perfumes when they were not praying and Katara had sent them crashing down on Nyla, nearly drowning her in a flood of smells, driving her berserk. The shirshu had begun lashing out at everyone and everything in range with her paralyzing tongue and Zuko's men had taken the brunt of the attack. June, who might have had been a calming influence on the beast, had been among the first removed from play and her beast had run rampant for a good long while.

So, once again, the Avatar had escaped. Somehow, despite his duty, his mission, and his honor, that seemed  _less_  important to Zuko.

He didn't understand  _why_  she had saved him.

She had  _had_  him. She had  _triumphed_! It had been perfect! He remembered feeling proud of her in that moment. Proud that he could be a stepping stone on her path to greatness. She would be a  _master_ , of that he was certain, and she would give his own people  _fits_  when she chose to meet them on the field of battle.

Zuko's eye narrowed in confusion.

_But she SAVED me…_

What could  _that_  mean? Did she despise him so much that she refused to allow him an honorable death? She had never seemed so cruel and vindictive as to desire an enemy to live on in shame and dishonor.

There were only a few possible explanations as far as Zuko understood it. Perhaps she had intended to take him prisoner, to bargain for the Avatar with Zuko's life. Or maybe she truly  _had_  meant it as a taunt, a statement to both the Fire-Nation and Zuko personally; that he was not  _worth_ killing because he was not a threat.

Zuko shuddered at the shame of it.

_But… she was crying…_

That was  _not_  something one did over potential prisoners  _or_  those that you intended to dishonor. That was something one did over the body of a lov-

_Do NOT think about that!_

Zuko couldn't allow himself to be distracted. He instead forced his mind to consider what had happened and what he had to do next.

It wasn't nearly as pleasant.

After Zuko had been able to rise from his bed, he had ordered the ship around the western horn of the Colonies, Steaming fast for the Northern Sea. He would try to cut them off there as they flew over the waters to the North Pole. The Devastator was faster than Appa on the open sea, especially over a long pursuit, and it was easily a week's flight from the continent to the ice of the north.

The biggest problem would be refueling. Zhao's ridiculous blockade was still in effect and Zuko could not afford to sail back and forth to open Fire-Nation ports. Despite this, he still saw a great many ships steaming through the Yangchen straits along with him, and when he signaled them with message lights he discovered that the port of Shiro Hokubu, the headquarters for the northern fleet, was open.

It had been a trap.

Not even a full day after the Devastator had docked, crowded in along with the bulk of the northern fleet, Zhao had appeared.

" _Zhao_ ," Zuko had snarled as the man sauntered, uninvited, onto Zuko's bridge.

"That's _Admiral_ Zhao. Honestly, whoever taught you manners should be flogged for incompetence," Zhao had said, a foreboding smirk on his smug face.

"What do you want,  _Admiral_ ," Zuko said, managing to invest the title with almost as much scorn as Zhao did on the word "Highness."

"I have here-" Zhao motioned to one of his orderlies, who unfurled a large and ornate scroll- "a proclamation of conscription for a major campaign."

"If you think for one moment that I will let you commandeer  _my_  ship-"

"Oh no, not your ship," Zhao said, waving the thought away as though Zuko had not personally taken the ship from him. "I require your  _crew._  Is there a Lieutenant-Commander Dosei Taro here?"

"I am  _Lieutenant_  Dosei, sir," Taro said, taking a small step forward.

"My congratulations on your promotion," Zhao said with a condescending sneer. "You will report to the HMS Victory along with your entire crew, post-haste."

"With respect sir, I must, unfortunately-"

"You will accept," Zuko interjected flatly.

"Sir?"

"You will not deny the Fire-Nation your much-needed skills," Zuko said bowing slightly. "Consider it my last order to you."

"SIR!" Taro saluted and bowed formally. "I thank you for your guidance."

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

The next night the ship was empty.

_Almost_  empty.

"Are you…  _sure_  about this nephew," Iroh asked, not bothering to mask the concern in his voice.

"Yes, uncle. I will be fine. You should go for that walk. The fools will be here any moment and I must be  _seen_  to be on the ship," Zuko did not turn from the window on the bridge, his arms behind his back, eye still locked northward.

"I know things have not been easy but…"

"Be easy in your mind, uncle. I no longer have any desire for self-destruction," Zuko said calmly.

Iroh blinked. "Not that I'm not pleased, but what brought this on?"

"It's just time,  _past_  time, for me to stop behaving like a child. I thank you for your patience with me, your unworthy student."

Iroh shook his head ruefully. "I suppose it is an auspicious day for it." He walked to the door, turned back, and bowed slightly. "Happy birthday, Zuko."

He left, and Zuko stood there alone, listening to the sounds of the sea, still facing north.

He was calm, the fact that he could very easily die in the next few minutes did not seem to perturb him overmuch. He had seen death, been at its door, heard the voices of his ancestors on the other side of that great gate. There was nothing to fear from death and when one knew  _that…_  there was nothing to fear from anything.

In the moonlight, Zuko saw shadowed figures climbing up onto the Devastator's deck, scurrying like the maggot-roaches they were, contaminating his ship.

_Nothing to fear, nothing but dishonor._

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

The Devastator burned.

An explosion had rocked the ship not even a half-hour after Iroh had left.  _Something_  had caused the engines to burst, nearly splitting the ship in two and spreading burning coal over half of the harbor. Unseen, a small ship sailed away from the wreckage, the filthy bushi on board raising their sake cups in a toast.

"For the Captain," the pirates intoned, downing their drinks, a gift from their new employer.

They would be found dead the next morning, their ship adrift, their faces bloated with poison. The port magistrate warned his deputies not to touch the sake.

The whole of Shiro Hokubu seemed subdued. A dead prince was not an auspicious omen for the coming campaign. It was rumored that despite his grief, or perhaps because of it, the famous General Iroh would join the war party serving as military advisor to Admiral Zhao.

The HMS Victory, under the command of Lt Commander Dosei Taro, set sail with the rest of the northern fleet a few days later. Their stores topped off, the full crew performing with their usual, admirable, efficiency.

A full crew,  _plus one._

If it was considered odd that the newest member of the engineering company, a mere Corporal by his armor rank, should be given a private room in the officer's area of the ship, no one mentioned it. If an outsider  _had_  been present to consider it they might have also found it odd that the engineer, who wore the regulation protective faceplate that most disdained, could often be found standing silently on the bridge, his arms folded behind his back. Even more odd might have been the fact that this particular engineer had arrived in the middle of the night, still dripping with seawater, his belongings tightly secured in protective wet bags.

The masked "engineer" stood by, his single yellow eye facing north as the fleet moved onward to Shiro Doji.

And the Siege of the North.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome to this EARLY version of Avatar: The Last Dragon. You will, of course, have noticed that this chapter is rather short, below my personal standard of acceptable weekly publishing, so you SHOULD get a double post.
> 
> Which leaves me in something of a pickle.
> 
> Because the NEXT chapter is the finale. The end of book two. Which SHOULD mean that I should publish the beginning of the NEXT book as well.
> 
> So, for your reading pleasure, prepare yourselves for TRIPLE POST WEEKEND!
> 
> /sound of car horns, fireworks, possibly a gong.
> 
> That's right gentlepersons, expect the last chapter, Siege of the North, to be up Sunday morning at the usual time, then Chapter 1 of Book 3 a few hours later.
> 
> Gosh, I'm all aquiver.
> 
> Other than that, I have very few notes for this chapter. Zuko is a bit better at seeing how the wind is blowing and KNOWS the pirates are coming. A plan is hatched and Zuko's old crew gets to be complicit in his faked death and sneaking along with the fleet. It's pretty much the standard canon experience. Angsty!Zuko is angsty and trying to deal with the confusing experience of being SAVED. Also, I decided it was his birthday when his ship got blown up because the poor boy just can't catch a break.
> 
> I also highly recommend doing a google/youtube search for "KUMADA KAHORI Nasuno Yoichi," which is the song I listen to when I edit and is probably the song that Lt Bo is playing around the fire. Her encore will be Uncle Iroh's favorite "Four Seasons."
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the chapter despite its shortness and hope you'll stick around for the EXCITING CONCLUSION of Water Flows.
> 
>  
> 
> TOMORROW on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko goes for a swim and tries for "best two out of three."
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 11 August 2018


	12. The Siege of the North

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The following is rated P, for Puppet.
> 
> It contains dialog, where appropriate, from S1E19&20 "The Siege of the North."
> 
> Reader discretion is advised.

**Late Summer, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

A surprise attack was not in the nature of the Iron Fleet.

The skies over Shiro Doji had grown dark with coal dust  _days_ before their arrival and now the once pristine snow-white walls of the city, spanning the large gap between two high glaciers, were a dusky grey color. Soot missed with snow, and even the waters around the fleet began to take on a greyish tinge as the entire Northern Fleet sat moored in place, shelling the city.

They had been bombarding the city for ten days, the catapults and siege-trebuchets only falling silent once the sun had set. Allowing the firebenders to save their energy for the coming dark.

Once the moon rose, the Crane would come to  _them._

Stroke and counter-stroke.

They would slip out into the suddenly still waters, their mobile ice flows and dark painted canoes cutting through the waves with unnatural grace. Then the sea itself would rise in attack. Ice spears and waves crashing over the sides of the ships in terrible, if mostly futile, fury. The occasional party of Daidoji Iron Warriors, legendary for their speed and ferocity, could climb a suddenly present spike of ice onto a ship and try to wreak havoc for a few hours.

Stroke and counter-stroke.

The flow of battle was palpable. The two sides drawing great strength and ferocity from the more powerful times of their element. Fire by day, Ice by night. Then, after that time had passed, they would sink back in fatigue. It wasn't just that they were weaker during the night or day, but whatever tiredness they felt from so much bending would multiply in the twilight causing many to fall over in exhaustion once the sun or moon had set.

But the Water-Tribe was growing  _stronger_.

The moon had been waxing, a few days past new when the fleet had begun the siege, and every night it grew more and more full. As it did the Crane grew more and more bold, more and more powerful. They knew that if they were to stand a chance they would have to defeat the Fire-Nation soon or watch their monthly power, their only advantage, slowly drain away.

And then watch their city be ground to slush.

Stroke and counter-stroke.

It was the night of the full moon that Zuko chose to strike.

Both the Fire-Nation and the Water-Tribe would be too focused on the battle, to near the crescendo of their dance to notice his little kayak. Zuko would enter Shiro Doji and do battle with the Avatar.

Find him,  _fight him_ , capture him. Simple.

Simple… if  _unlikely_  to be successful.

Zuko still thought it was his best chance, however. The boy  _had_  made a great showing the first few days of the battle. He'd flown out on Appa, knocking fire blasts and ballista bolts aside, and proceeded to individually assault whole battleships, landing on their decks and wreaking destruction on them with air and water.

But as time went on, as the boy fought twelve or sixteen hours a day, he became noticeably weaker. Where on the first day he'd sunk or otherwise ruined a dozen warships, his most recent sortie had seen only  _one_  damaged and a second one mildly inconvenienced.

He was  _weak_ and NOW was the time to strike.

Iroh was the last to see Zuko leave, excusing himself from Zhao's company to "console the grieving officers" aboard the HMS Victory.

"Remember your heart of fire," he said, worry still painting his face.

"Yes, uncle," Zuko said as he tightened the straps on the heavy white thermal coat he wore as protection against the biting cold of the North Pole.

"I think a blizzard is coming, be sure to pull your hood up to cover your ears."

"Yes, uncle."

"Zuko," Iroh said putting his hand on Zuko's shoulder, "No matter what happens, remember… I am very proud of you."

Zuko stared at him for a long moment, then smiled, breaking up the hard lines of his face into something almost human looking. "Thank you, uncle," he said quietly and they embraced.

The Victory had been assigned away from the bulk of the fighting, on the eastern flank of the armada; another mark of disdain that Zhao had for Zuko. Even assumed to be dead Zhao would not allow any glory to fall on the soldiers and sailors his rival had formerly commanded. It worked in the (still very much alive) Zuko's favor however, and his kayak and he made the icy cliffside without incident. Moving carefully, he slowly crept his way westward, to a spar of ice that would serve as a good observation point.

The fighting was furious in the waters between the fleet and the ruins of the Crane's outer wall; Ice grew out of the sea and launched itself at the ships in a barrage of icy destruction, the moon-weakened firebenders barely managing to interdict the swarm with timed waves of fire as the last of their troops finished withdrawing from the rents in the walls.

Shiro Doji's walls had been breached only a few days before, and the Fire-Nation had landed troops twice before this, but they always drew back as the sun set, unwilling to be caught strung out and easy pickings for the suddenly much stronger waterbenders.

Shiro Doji had been a beautiful city. From the massive outer wall, the city rose upwards in graceful steps, its highest point dominated by a great palatial tower which, had it not been made of ice and snow, would not have looked out of place in Otosan Uchi. The buildings, where they were not scorched and marred by fire, were pure artistry, graceful and sweeping, like the element their people embodied.

Zuko spent nearly an hour observing the ruined outer walls, trying to find a weakness, but there were no patterns to the Crane's patrols, the chaos of battle was upon them as soldiers flitted back and forth. Zuko had just convinced himself that he would simply have to hope for luck, and prepare to fight his way in, when he noticed something curious.

Or rather a  _lack_  of something curious.

He had chosen this place as an observation point, in part, because of the large quantity of barking turtle-seals that inhabited it. In a worst-case scenario enemy observers might hopefully mistake him for just another one of the large creatures. But as Zuko steadied himself to move to the walls he noted that that barking had ceased. He turned around, only to see the last of the beasts vanish into an open pool of water surrounded by ice.

_They're not surfacing out at sea,_ Zuko observed, his eye narrowing.  _They have to be coming up for air somewhere in there._

Acting on his hunch Zuko drew a large lungful of air, using "heart of fire" to raise his temperature, and then dove into the water.

The cold nearly drove the air from his lungs immediately.

It was pitch back and freezing as he blindly fought his way through the narrow tunnel. He took it as a matter of faith that there  _had_ to be a place to breathe soon. What constituted  _soon_  was up for debate, but with a force of will he continued onward.

After a seeming eternity he finally broke through into a pitch-black cave, reeking of seal, but surprisingly warm. He shivered and shook, lying in the fetal position on the cave floor, struggling for breath. It came in short gasps as his half-frozen lungs tried to reject the warmer air of the cave. Concentrating, he focused on his heart of fire, and his breathing eventually evened out into something more rhythmic.

_Thank the Sun uncle taught me that. Though I could still go for a cup of tea._ He laughed near hysterically at the thought, almost a giggle.  _Pity the Crane don't live in Chameleon Bay, at least THAT water was warm._

After a long moment, he managed to collect himself and rose to one knee, bending fire into his hand. The horde of turtle-seals took the opportunity to begin barking angrily at him for daring to interrupt their sleep with his red light. Zuko ignored them, looking around, finding no obvious exit except for the way that he had come.

Except for a geyser of water erupting from the wall.

_It's fresh,_  Zuko thought, tasting the icy flow.  _It won't lead me back to the sea at least._

Stealing himself, and whispering a silent prayer to his ancestors, he took a pair of climbing picks out of the small pack at his waist. Drawing another deep breath, he threw himself into the hole in the wall, fighting the current every grueling step of the way.

It seemed an eternity until the current diminished and he found a tiny air pocket with barely enough space for even his nose. After grabbing his breath back, and re-bending himself as warm as he could manage, he swam on in the dark towards what his now entirely dilated eye told him was light.

And found the way  _blocked_.

Pale moonlight shone through thin ice, but there was no air. He slammed his fists against the ice but was unable to summon either fire or enough force to damage the obstruction. His vision began to tunnel as he desperately tried to bend fire underwater and finally, in a last desperate gamble, he released the last of the air in his lungs into the water and created just enough space, just enough air, for fire to be born and  _bent_.

The ice at his palm melted.

He thrust his mouth into the hole gasping greedily, then quickly made it large enough for him to fit through.

He crawled out into a circular, obviously man-made, tunnel fighting his desire to pant and hack. He was in the city now, and it wouldn't  _do_  to make too much noise. Although it would be just his luck to make it so far only to be snatched up the instant he managed to get into the city. Slowly, steadily, his breathing calmed and the tunneling in his eye disappeared.

_I suppose I could just LAY here,_ he thought, mind once again on the brink of hysteria.  _Lay here and wait for… I don't know… father to pass away? He's in his late thirties, shouldn't be more than fifty or sixty YEARS._

_Enough foolishness! Pay attention!_  That voice sounded like his uncle.

The hole he had emerged from was under a bridge, and the sounds of people walking and talking over it drifted down to him faintly.

People with voices he  _recognized._

"So, is this the way to the Spirit World?" Aang asked genially.

A soft giggle answered him, a voice Zuko didn't recognize. "No, but I can take you to the most spiritual place in the North Pole. This way!"

"Aang-" and Zuko's heart nearly stopped at the sound of Katara's voice- "the last time you got to the spirit world by accident. How are you going to get there this time?"

"I'll figure something out," the boy said confidently. "A positive attitude is the first step on the road to success."

Zuko grinned.  _Good to know. Let's see how positive you are in chains._

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Shadowing the three of them, Aang, Katara, and a white-haired beauty that Zuko didn't recognize, was remarkably simple. There were no guards, and they took no precautions as they walked. They obviously felt safe here in the heart of Shiro Doji where even the longest ranged of the Fire-Nation artillery couldn't find them.

_Zuko_  had however.

After a fair bit of walking, they came to yet another ice wall, this one with a small ornately carved wooden door embedded in it. Zuko assumed that this door would have been rather heavily guarded under normal circumstances, but the presence of the Iron Fleet made these circumstances far from normal. Every warm body was needed at the outer wall, once more reinforcing the lesson Zuko had learned.

A fortress was like a tortoise.

Or perhaps a turtle-seal would be more appropriate in this situation.

As the last of the three passed through the door Zuko burst out of concealment and flew up, and over, the icy wall as easily as if it were a ladder.

The area behind the wall was grassy green grove, shocking after the unrelieved icy blue and white of the Crane's capital city. The air smelled like spring and the temperature rose dramatically as soon as he crossed the threshold.

_The spirits are at work here_ , he thought wonderingly.

Quickly coming to his senses, he rolled behind a stone sculpture near the wall and concealed himself. He would have to wait, bide his time, and pick the most opportune moment to strike. He could try to fight Katara and the Avatar here and now, but the moon was full and they had access to a large waterfall that made up the back wall of the grove. The odds of him subduing not one but possibly  _three_  waterbenders during a full moon were as low as they could possibly be.

So, he waited, and listened.

After a moment the boy began shouting at the girls to be quiet, that he could hear everything that they were saying and it was interfering with his meditation. Zuko risked a peek out at the trio and saw that, suiting his words, the boy was in a meditation pose before a pool of water at the center of the grove. He seemed to be watching a pair of massive black and white koi fish which swam in almost hypnotic circles at the center of the pool.

All at once the Avatar's eyes opened, flashing bright blue, but he remained completely still otherwise.

"Is he okay?" the white-haired girl asked.

"He's crossing into the spirit world. He'll be fine as long as we don't move him. It's his way back to our world," Katara said calmly.

… _so, he's unconscious?_ Zuko thought, a small smile appearing on his face.  _That's convenient._

"Maybe we should get some help?"

"No," Katara said fiercely, grasping her wakizashi as she unknowingly sent a shiver up Zuko's spine. "He's my friend. I'm perfectly capable of protecting him."

_The implication being that the other girl ISN'T,_ Zuko thought. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, reaching out with his senses, feeling the warmth of the grove sink into him, the sensation of the torches that lined the walls giving light, and, more importantly, the telltale sensation of pins and needles that crept along his limbs.

The  _Sun_  was coming.

It was TIME.

"Katara?"

"Yes, Yue?"

"Why… did the torches turn  _red_? Does that have something to do with the spirit realm too?"

"No… NO!" Katara sounded horrified.

"Yes," Zuko said calmly, emerging from his hiding place.

_I need to stall for a few minutes,_  he thought.  _Time for banter, get the spare out of the way._

He turned to Yue, yellow eye glaring. "You might-" his sword of fire leapt into his hand, startling her- "want to go get some help." Zuko was counting on that taking a while, there hadn't been even a hint of anyone nearby as he had followed them here. He advanced on them slowly as Katara put herself between him and the Avatar.

Yue, face panicked, took off, moving surprisingly fast despite her enormous bulky robes.

Katara's face had grown dark with controlled fury. "You think I need  _help_  to fight  _you_?!" she hissed.

"No, I don't."

_STALL HER!_

"Maybe… I just want you all to myself."

… _Really? THIS is how we're stalling her?_

"Why can't you just leave us alone?!" Katara shouted, a faint blush creeping into her cheeks.

"Why didn't you let me die?" Zuko rasped back. It burst out of his lips seemingly without his consent.

It was an important question. He had barely been able to sleep in the last few weeks for wondering over it. The answer to that question had driven him into Shiro Doji almost as much as his quest to capture the Avatar.

Katara looked stunned. "What? Did y-you  _want_  to die?" She tried to laugh. "Defeated by a Unicorn  _girl_?"

He shook his head. "It would have been an honorable death, being killed by you. Far better than to continue on living like this, in shame and ignominy. I had not thought you  _despised_  me so, found me so lacking that you would not even-"

"You're insane!" she shouted, seeming horrified. "H-how could you think that I would… would…"

"I didn't  _fall_  onto a foot of sharpened ice, Shinjo."

"That… that was a mistake."

"A mistake?  _That_ was MAGNIFICENT," Zuko said his eye going wide, an almost feral grin breaking out onto his face. "In that moment you were at your greatest, most honest version of yourself. You were terrifying, and it was beautiful."

"I… I can't  _believe_ you! You- you ENJOY this don't you?"

"Yes, and so do you."

"I am  _nothing_  like you!" Katara said with a shout.

"You are EXACTLY like me!" Zuko roared back. "Battle,  _conflict,_  is your DESTINY! I see it in your eyes every time we meet, the  _rage_ lurking there, barely restrained. It lies there, in the chains you made, just waiting, for any excuse, any  _justification_ , to be set free. And when you do-" he shivered- "like a stormy sea, implacable and beautiful."

Katara had no response, she just stood there with a look of pure bafflement on her face.

_Only a few minutes left. Start the fight, let her tire herself out, it will make this easier._

"You should have let me DIE, Katara," Zuko said as he took a stance. "Now we both must suffer for it."

He leapt forward and the fight began.

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Shinjo Katara was a waterbending master.

_If they haven't declared her one by now then the Crane truly are fools,_  Zuko thought idly, his mind calm despite his body being battered a raging tumult of water.

She had driven him back almost immediately, her bending phenomenally strong in the light of the full moon, throwing hundreds of gallons of water in just a few throws. One maneuver flowed into another seamlessly, attack and defense at the same time, all a part of the same whole.

For the moment she was actually stronger than him, and Zuko's mind flew attempting to find a tactical counter.

_I just need to keep in the fight and to bait her into using more of these flashy bending maneuvers,_ Zuko thought as he spun away from a veritable tsunami that flew past him. _She's stronger than me so I need to be agile, I need to be… Sun's blood I need to fight like Azula!_

His little sister, even without having to be told, had understood that it wasn't raw power that was truly important in a one on one fight, it was  _finesse_. It was unsurprising, she was a prodigy after all. Azula's speed, and her taunting smile, had always been vastly irritating in the way that only one's little sister could be, and when they sparred it had almost always goaded him into doing something that he would later regret.

_Break her rhythm, make her adapt._

He exploded forward with a roar, fire at his fists as though to charge her head on. Then, taking advantage of his unusual lack of heavy armor, he suddenly changed directions, going for the motionless form of the Avatar instead. She intercepted him, but was forced to break her flow slightly, shifting her feet to guard the boy as she blasted him back.

Again, and again, she slammed Zuko into the ground or the high cliff walls surrounding the grove, yet each time she hesitated, catching her breath but allowing Zuko to easily gain his feet again, to establish his root.

_She's not going for the kill. She's got her rage on a leash still. Taunt her._

"You need to  _hurry_ , Shinjo," Zuko said, standing up once again and sneering. "Your time is almost up."

_That should piss her off enough to get her really involved…_

Katara's face broke into a snarl.

… _Or to get yourself killed. One way or the other I suppose._

She slammed him back into the cliffside again, this time hard enough to make his teeth click. Then, with a series of pulling and grasping motions, she bent a massive flowing ball of water around Zuko and froze it, locking him inside.

She smiled. A truly  _dangerous_  smile.

"Impressive!" Zuko shouted, a matching smile on his mangled face. Then he used the kata "sky-burst," shattering the icy prison, sending steaming icy debris everywhere. "MOST impressive! But you need to stop  _trying_  to fight me and FIGHT ME! What's the matter,  _little girl_? Are you scared that-"

"RRAAAGGGHHH!" Katara screamed as she grabbed ahold of the  _entire_ waterfall.

_Okay, no more taunting. She's pissed off enough._

It was as though she threw every drop of water in the grove at him, hammering him back into the cliffside with enough force that spots began to form in his vision. The monumental flow of water drove him easily twenty feet in the air, slamming into him over and over again, blinding him and choking off his air. Finally, with a wrenching grasping motion, she froze the entire flow, embedding him solidly in an angled pillar of ice, only his face and fingertips exposed.

"It's OVER, Akodo!" Katara cried triumphantly.

"Yes. It is," Zuko said, and the Sun broke over the horizon.

Katara's look of triumphant fury was suddenly replaced by startled exhaustion. She seemed to sag in place, the weight of the bending she had done over the last few minutes hitting her and taking its toll.

Zuko took a deep breath, feeling the full power of the Sun burning through his veins, and his heart of fire melted the ice around him. He slid down the icy flow and advanced on Katara deliberately. The stalk of a predator approaching wounded, but possibly still dangerous, prey.

" _You_  rise with the Moon.  _I_  rise with the Sun," he said quietly, all taunting gone from his face.

Katara could barely keep her feet as she tried to defend herself and Zuko drove her all the way across the grove, away from the still immobile form of the Avatar. She was so tired she couldn't even  _bend_  anymore and just tried to use raw water style to defend herself. Zuko could tell she hadn't had any training in non-bending combat but was impressed all the same.

_Even defeated she still perseveres. Wonderful._

Lurching, barely able to keep her feet, she finally slipped and fell forward. Zuko caught her and put her back to the wall at the opposite end of the grove he'd started from.

Even exhausted to the point of being unable the stand unaided, her robes singed, her hair in disarray, her eyes were still sharp, glaring at him, beautiful stormy blue-grey promises of destruction.

"You bastard," she panted trying to catch her breath, "I'll  _kill_  you, you bast-"

She was cut off as Zuko suddenly kissed her.

Her eyes were wide and utterly shocked as he drew away.

"I'm sorry," Zuko said.

Then he drove his fist into her stomach, knocking the wind, and the consciousness, right out of her.

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A blizzard raged.

Shockingly the weather atop the glaciers surrounding Shiro Doji was completely different from the inside of city itself. Zuko had tied up the Avatar, thrown him over his shoulder, then quickly scaled the cliffs around the spirit grove. Then, at the top, he was met by this howling torrent of ice.

_Typical,_  he grumbled to himself.  _Everything goes JUST fine until I've got this little bastard. Then it all goes to the pits._

He trudged along through knee-high snow, hopefully heading in the right direction, his heart of fire keeping him warm.

_Why, in Akodo's name, did you KISS her!?_

THAT had not been part of the plan. Never in his wildest imaginings had he foreseen  _that_  sequence of events.

Well, not in any  _realistic_  imaginings anyway.

_Great dating strategy genius._  This voice sounded like his uncle.  _Kiss her, then knock her unconscious and kidnap her boyfriend. What in the ashpits were you thinking!?_

He really  _hadn't_ been thinking.

_Well, maybe you should START! Your heart of fire can't keep you warm forever and who knows what this cold is doing to the Avatar. If he dies…  
_

If he died now, then all of this had been for nothing.

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Zuko had found a cave.

Not truly a cave, just an icy hollow carved out of the ice and snow by the odd will of nature. Zuko dropped the boy off his shoulder and made sure he was secure.

"We'll wait out the storm in here," Zuko said aloud to the unconscious Avatar.

The boy, of course, did not reply.

"I finally have you, but I can't get you home because of this blizzard," Zuko growled, still speaking aloud. "Why is there always _something_ with you? Always somebody showing up at the last moment, or you moving at exactly the right second. Wriggling free like an octopus-shark from a net."

He began to pace slowly back and forth.

"Even this storm! I'd have you back on my ship by now, steaming for  _home_  if not for this!" he lunged and grabbed the unconscious boy by his collar, lifting him to face him. "Why does everything always happen for YOU?"

Zuko shook his head, scowling, and put the defenseless boy back on the ground.

"To the ashpits with it. I don't need luck. My whole life I've had to struggle and fight. It's made me strong, made me who I am." He spun back to the Avatar's prone form. "You, you just get to float through life, not a care in the world. And the world  _obliges_ you." His voice rose as he continued ranting, eventually peaking in a shout. "Don't want to fight Fire-Lord Sozin? Don't worry, you can just  _sleep_  for a hundred years. Don't want to be captured? Don't worry, your enemies will just fight each other while you scamper away! Don't want to fight your own fucking battles!? Don't worry, the great spirit of ROKU will come save you!"

Zuko was almost hyperventilating, the rage pouring off him like bile.

_Kill him,_ a voice hissed.

Zuko's sword of flame was in his hand, the tip a scant inch from the Avatar's throat.

He stood there a moment, completely still.

Then he released a shuddering breath and the sword at the same time.

"Don't want to die? Don't worry, the man they'll send to hunt you down needs to capture you alive," he said quietly.

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The blizzard raged for an entire day.

Zuko was sitting cross-legged, contemplating the storm and whether it would be safe to move on, when a bright stream of light shot through the air and burst on the Avatar.

Zuko narrowed his eye.

"Welcome back," he sneered as the boy struggled feebly with his bindings.

"Good to  _be_  back," the boy retorted as he bent wind from his mouth, attempting to propel himself out of the cave. It began to work… until the rope that he was bound with grew taunt and slammed him back to the ground with an "oof."

Zuko had staked one end of the rope to the ground in anticipation of the maneuver.

"If nothing else, I always try to learn from my mistakes," Zuko said acidly.

"So do I!" Katara shouted, from just outside the cave.

_Oh, shi-  
_

Katara bent, and the cave collapsed on Zuko's head.

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He awoke an indeterminate amount of time later.

It was warm, he noted, as he gradually swam back to consciousness. It was warm… and he couldn't  _move_. His eye shot open in the beginnings of primal panic, expecting to find nothing but the darkness of several tons of snow. Instead, he found himself back in the spirit grove, illuminated in red moonlight and tied up on Appa's back.

_Wait, is this… MY rope?_  He thought stupidly, flexing his muscles against his bindings.

It was.

_Those idiots tied up a FIREbender with ROPE!?_

The idiots in question swam into focus in front of Zuko. They were too busy trying to stare down a man holding a wriggling bag at the edge of the central pool to pay any attention to him.

_What's going on? Why is everything red?_  Zuko wondered his mind still fuzzy. Not so fuzzy that he couldn't bend himself free and silently roll off the bison's back however. Everything around him was tinted with red light the color of blood.

As he hit the ground, a familiar voice rang out into the grove. "Put the spirit down, Zhao!" Iroh shouted.

_Uncle is here? And Zhao? How long was I asleep?_

"This is  _treason_  General Iroh," Zhao hissed. "This is my destiny! You cannot deny me my-"

"I'm no traitor! The Fire-Nation needs the moon too, Zhao! We all depend on the balance. Anything you do to that spirit I will return back upon you TEN-FOLD!" Iroh roared with a fury that Zuko hadn't heard from him in years, not since Doromuri.

_Ash and bone, those fish were the Ocean and Moon spirits?_ Zuko thought, remembering with horror how indiscriminately he had flung fire in this very place not a day ago.  _I was in the presence of the Great Kami and didn't even notice!_

Even Zuko knew the tale of the Moon and Sea, who had loved each other and the mortal world so much that they had given up their immortality to stay there together. They danced together endlessly, the ocean rising to meet the moon as she twirled in the night sky.

Apparently, they were also big fish who lived at the North Pole.

Zuko glanced up at the moon behind him where it shone down blood red.  _That must be why everything is red; Lady Moon is dying!_

"Let her go, NOW!" Iroh roared, drawing Zuko's attention back to the confrontation at the edge of the water.

Zhao stared furiously at Iroh and the Avatar, both of whom stood in ready bending stances. The tension ratcheted higher and higher until… Zhao relented. He seemed to sag in defeat as he slowly placed the massive koi fish back in the water at his feet.

The tension disappeared. The moonlight returned to normal. Everyone took a shuddering, steadying, breath.

And in that moment, Zhao struck.

He bent a sweeping blast of fire across the surface of the pond, the flames illuminating the horror on everyone's faces and ugly triumph on Zhao's.

Then the moon vanished entirely, and all color disappeared from the world.

Iroh let out a howl of rage and grief and flew towards Zhao, flames at his hands, but he was intercepted by the personal guards that Zhao had brought with him. With the pitch black of darkest night as cover Zhao slipped away.

Zuko, ignoring his uncle, Katara, and even the Avatar, followed.

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Only a few moments after Zuko cleared the wall separating the grove from the city proper the very ground itself began to shake. A towering form, shining in the same brilliant blue-white light as the Avatar, emerged from the spirit grove and let forth a bellow that seemed to shake the world. The Kami of the Sea had come, and she advanced through the city, slaying hundreds of Fire-Nation soldiers as she went.

Exacting her terrible vengeance.

As Zuko chased Zhao he could feel the rage coming upon him. Feel it creeping up his spine, fueled by the sounds of screams. He could somehow  _hear_  them, hear his people  _screaming_  as they paid the price for Zhao's blasphemy and it banked his fury in such a way as he had never known.

Zhao had done this, and he would  _pay_.

Zuko caught up to Zhao on one of the mid-levels of the city and when he did he bent fire, a great roaring wall of it blocking Zhao's escape.

A fire kata… he was certain he did not recognize.

Zhao turned, his face going livid with shock and rage.

"You're ALIVE?!" he screamed, furious.

Zuko said nothing, he simply continued to walk forwards towards Zhao. The rage  _had_  him, and yet his mind seemed remarkably clear, as though this were something he was watching instead of participating in. Not at all like the strange befuddled confusion that accompanied his madness before.

"You're the Grey Ghost! An enemy of the Fire-Nation," Zhao accused.

Zuko said nothing. He felt nothing at the accusation, no shame, no guilt, not even more anger at the fool who forced him to stoop to such dishonorable lows. He was full of rage, so full of it that it didn't even seem to be just  _his_  rage.

It was cold.

Cold like nothing  _alive_  should be.

"You should have accepted your defeat at my hands! Then at least you might have kept your  _life_!" Zhao taunted and then bent fire.

Or  _tried_  to bend at least.

The moment the flame came into being at Zhao's fist, it turned bright red and flew away from Zuko, rolling along Zhao's arm into the still burning curtain of fire at his back. Zhao screamed in agony, the fire had  _burned_  him, and he fell to his knees cradling his blackened arm.

Zuko reached Zhao and stood before him, staring through the fiery curtain out to sea where the towering joined figure of Avatar and Kami had just reached the Iron Fleet. When Zuko finally opened his mouth to speak, the voice that came out wasn't his.

"You have brought  _dishonor_  to my Nation," the voice growled. It was low and gravely, ancient and terrible, like dust in a tomb. "The Sea will rise, avenging her lover and swallowing everything we have wrought." A single yellow eye fell on Zhao like a hammer strike. "For your  _pride_ , my people suffer." The ancient voice grew in intensity and the red flames before him grew hotter and brighter. "For your  _sacrilege,_ I cast you out. I strip you of name, of glory, and of rank. May your soul find no rest, and no songs be sung of your passing."

The Outcast's face went white with pain and primal terror. "No! You can't- It's not POSSIBLE."

The Akodo ignored the honorless thing's bleating. He raised his head, and with a voice that seemed to shake the heavens, called out.

"LA!"

La, the Kami of the Sea, paused in her destruction of the Iron Fleet, turning to look over her shoulder back towards the city. With a speed that belied her massive size, she flowed back to The Akodo and The Outcast and stopped there, towering over both of them, staring down, waiting.

The curtain of flame fell as The Akodo bowed, back parallel to the ground. "My condolences on your loss, my lady. I offer our lives that your vengeance might be sated."

"No! You can't!" screamed The Outcast.

With glacial slowness the Sea's two great arms reached down to grab the pair, one still bowed double, the other screaming in a high-pitched animal whine.

At the last moment she stopped, looking back up into the sky.

Where the Moon shone brightly once again.

La grabbed The Outcast and sank back into the waters of the sea.

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**Early Autumn, Year 10 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"But how did the moon come back? I thought that the Admiral killed the fish?" Lt Bo asked wonderingly.

"Ah, but Princess Yue's life was saved by the Moon spirit when she was a child!" Iroh declaimed, gesturing expansively, enjoying the telling of the tale almost as much as he enjoyed being the center of attention. "So, at the moment of truth, she sacrificed her  _own_  life to restore Tui, the Lady of the Moon."

"Wow!" Bo said, beaming as though she were a child hearing her favorite bedtime story.

Zuko supposed she needed something to focus on other than her cousin's sacrilege and subsequent death.

Taro nodded in agreement with Bo's sentiments but rose from the briefing room table to stand next to Zuko who was, as usual, staring out the window, hands clasped behind his back.

"It will not take long for reports to get back to Otosan Uchi, sir," Taro said quietly. "A number of people saw the General attack Admiral Zhao… I fear the Fire-Lord will not be pleased."

"No, he will not be pleased at all," Zuko replied, also quietly. "But until you have sure and certain orders to the contrary… my uncle is still a royal, the brother of the Fire-Lord, and a retired war hero. And he…  _We_  would be obliged if you took us back to the Colonies."

"What  _did_  happen to Admiral Zhao, sir?" Taro asked curiously.

"I believe my uncle has told you the story."

"Yes sir, but… the spirit of Akodo appeared and gave him over to the Sea? I'm as pious as the next officer but… we live in an age of  _reason_ , sir." Taro said it pleadingly, clearly asking Zuko to give him a more rational explanation.

"You saw the moon  _disappear_ , Commander?"

"Yes, sir."

"You saw the spirit of the ocean rise up?"

Taro sighed. "Yes, sir."

"Then why is it beyond the realm of possibility that Akodo might appear?"

"I… had thought he was just a myth, sir." Taro at least had the good grace to look embarrassed by that.

Zuko blinked. "What? Who do you think wrote  _LEADERSHIP_?"

"Well sir, a lot of people think that  _the_  Akodo was just an amalgamation of the first few dozen Fire-Lords. I just thought that the royalty sat down a few dozen generations after the founding and just wrote down everything that their parents and grandparents had taught them. Just like how the War College publishes appendices."

Zuko narrowed his eye and turned back to the window. "I can  _assure_  you, Commander. Akodo was a real person."

Zuko hadn't told anyone what had happened that night. That dry scraping voice that had issued forth from his lips and condemned Zhao more thoroughly than he had ever imagined a man could be. He suspected, based on the way his uncle's eyes darted to his during that section of the tale that Iroh had seen a great deal of it, but Zuko planned to never tell a soul.

Akodo was  _very_  real. Akodo had  _been_  there, and he had used Zuko like a  _puppet_.

_Ash and bone, I'm tired,_ Zuko thought.  _I need rest._

_A good LONG rest._

And maybe a cup of tea.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome the ending of the ending of book 2! We did it!
> 
> /thunderous applause… hopefully.
> 
> Glad you've stuck around for it! Your comments/hits/views/kudoses/thoughts&prayers are very much appreciated, and make this a lot of fun for me.
> 
> And now the Bits Von Meta!
> 
> The Crane: In L5R the Crane clan might be best summed up as "those pompous a-holes." In the empire, they are the Cultural Hub, the guardians of manners and propriety, the masters of poetry and art. Their clan colors are light blue and white, again very appropriate for the NWT. They are also famous for being courtiers and great one on one duelists. I'm afraid that a lot of that doesn't come through here in this chapter, but that's one of the reasons for these A/Ns anyway. Another interesting note is that, like the Unicorn clan, their founder is a woman. How then do they rationalize the whole "women are NOT fighters" thing? To be honest in canon L5R they don't, nobody does. It's one of the major deviations in L5R's game world from medieval Japan. There IS no sexism. Unfortunately, I have decided to keep that aspect of the Northern Water Tribe for this work. It's far too important to Katara's personal narrative that she gets to kick Pakku's ass and battle sexism. And while most of it does happen off camera I assure you it DOES happen.
> 
> Deviations from Standard.
> 
> Battle!: That the NWT's only plan is to sneak on board a ship an assassinate Zhao is… well, it's stupid. If THAT had been the only thing they could do to defend themselves, I feel like Azulon would have kicked their asses couple of decades ago. So, the largest of the four Fire-Nation fleets has to besiege the place and just shell the walls for almost two weeks to even start landing people. Still a little faster than any normal siege might take but, hey it's better than nothing. I tried to make it a little more of a fight, as though maybe the FN might actually lose. Hope that came through.
> 
> A bit of Plan: A point that I've made a few times in various comments, Zuko is an experience-based tactician. He requires understanding to make plans and to be successful, a skill he continues to become better and better at. He's been able to watch the battle against the waterbenders and that gives him greater insight into his later duel with Katara. Not going to save him during the full moon, when he's in a cave MADE of ice, but then nobody should be surprised by that. Anyway, the better he understands his opponent or the situation the better he's going to perform. He still doesn't really grasp Aang because, for the most part, the boy doesn't really fight him. He dodges, dives, ducks, dips, and dodges. He's starting to get a grasp on Katara's style greatly helped by the fact he's had ten days to study her northern brethren and their fight has been playing on a loop in his brain for even longer. So, he has a smart fight, banks on the fact that he never gives up (reads as has ALL the hp in the world), and kicks some ass. Ultimately, he loses that "best two out of three," though.
> 
> My only regret is that I had him use the 'ol "plot knock out" thing. Maybe if one of you types is a medical person you can tell me if a stomach punch really is good enough for a KO.
> 
> Honor of the Ancestors: The ancestor spirits are a big deal in L5R and here in this fusion AU. The airbenders are probably the only ones who really weren't into it. I subscribe to the old, Aang never knew his parents because of strategic monk reasons, theory of the Avatar-verse. The Fire-Nation, by contrast, is all ABOUT their ancestors. Not only are their ancestors intrinsic to their own personal identity, they have a power to them, in some cases they ARE Kami. That's what's going down here at the end. In some ways it is literally Akodo, Zuko's distant ancestor, possessing him and punishing Zhao for his crimes. In another way, it's just Zuko himself, because GASP reincarnation is a thing in this universe. Yes, at the beginning it reminds Zuko of the madness, this is an IMPORTANT DETAILTM and will be discussed in more depth in later chapters. Yay foreshadowing!
> 
> Zhao's death: No, Zuko is not reaching out to him. I hated that. I hated that after everything this man had done, not even to just Zuko personally, that our boy would try to save him. It just boggles my mind. There will be NO songs sung of his passing.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! See you in a few hours /fingers crossed.
> 
>  
> 
> IN A FEW HOURS on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
> 
> Iroh drinks tea! Zuko discovers a new favorite drink and gets a haircut!
> 
> TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
> 
> Original post date: 12 August 2018


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